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FRANCE 

AND OURSELVES 



HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 




Class J[l_i.. 






COnORlGHT DEPOSIT. 



FRANCE AND OURSELVES 



OTHER BOOKS 
BY HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 

THE NEW MAP OF EUROPE 
THE NEW MAP OF AFRICA 
THE NEW MAP OF ASIA 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE OTTOMAN 
EMPIRE 

PARIS REBORN 

THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LUXEM- 
BOURG 

THE BLACKEST PAGE IN MODERN HIS- 
TORY 

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND AND 

THE NEAR EAST 
SONGS FROM THE TRENCHES 
RIVIERA TOWNS 



FRANCE AND OURSELVES 

INTERPRETATIVE STUDIES: 
1917-1919 



BY 

HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 

Author of "Paris Reborn," "The Reconstruction 
of Poland and the Near East," etc. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1920 



^y 



Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, by 
The Century Co. 



Copyright, 1919, by 
Harper and Brothers 



Copyright, 1919, by 
The Ridgway Co. 



Published, February, 1920 



p.s 



O 



©Ct.A565300 



0- 



TO 

EMILE HOVELAQUE 

CASPAR WHITNEY 

WILL IRWIN 



in memory of the constant silver lining in the 

cloud. They never lost sight of it — and 

God bless them for the work they 

did in keeping together 

France and ourselves ! 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The author thanks the editors of the Century, 
Harper's, Everybody's, Fortnightly Review, and 
Revue Hebdomadaire for permission to republish 
matter contributed to their pages. Most of the 
chapters of this book appeared originally as staff 
contributions to the Century from France. 
"The Industrial Effort of France During the 
War" and "The Reconstruction of Northern 
France" appeared in Harper's, "Human Cur- 
rents of the War" in Everybody's, "The Recon- 
struction of Northern France" in the Fort- 
nightly, and "The Attitude of France Towards 
Peace" in Revue Hebdomadaire. 

H. A. G. 

Princeton, February, 1920 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I How We Can Help France .... 3 



II The Tiger of France 23 

III World Justice for France .... 34 

IV The Industrial Effort of France Dur- 

ing THE War 76 

V Human Currents of the War . . . Ill 

VI The Attitude of France toward Peace 148 

VII The Reconstruction of Northern 

France 187 

Vni The Case against Caillaux .... 220 

IX What Confronts France . . . . . 251 



FRANCE 
AND OURSELVES 



FRANCE 
AND OURSELVES 



CHAPTER I 

HOW WE CAN HELP FRANCE^ 

13 EFORE the United States entered the war 
*^ a few Americans were helping a few 
French. The French as a people were apprecia- 
tive of the aid that came from America, and there 
were remarkable testimonials of this apprecia- 
tion. Our ambulances were seen on the French 
front, and Americans in Red Cross work lost 
their lives on the field of battle. In many places 
American hospitals, served by American doctors 
and nurses, cared for the French wounded. Or- 
ganizations for rehef-work were engaged in a 
multitude of activities, and the American Relief 

1 June, 1917. 



4 France and Ourselves 

Clearing House in Paris dispensed money by 
the millions and sent out boxes by the thousands. 
Other Americans were not content to work for 
France. They fought for France in the Foreign 
Legion and in the Aviation Corps. 

But all this was the effort of individual men 
and women. The United States was neutral, 
and so long as the United States remained neu- 
tral, the American nation could not help the 
French nation in the death struggle. The hero- 
ism and the self-sacrifice and the warm partizan- 
ship of individual Americans did not atone for 
American neutrality. Whether the French 
should have understood our neutrality and have 
acknowledged our right and reason to remain 
neutral is not to the point. The fact is that we 
were neutral. 

Only Americans who knew how France felt 
about America could realize how France felt 
about American neutrality. The feeling about 
America may have been erroneous ; but only if it 
were erroneous (which God forbid!) could the 
feeling about American neutrality be unreason- 



How We Can Help France 5 

able. Have we ever understood the French con- 
ception of America? Far deeper than the im- 
pression, gained from contact with American 
tom'ists, of America as the land of dollars and 
dollar-chasing, lay the belief in America as the 
land of hberty, the defender of right and justice 
in the relations between man and man and be- 
tween nation and nation. The French have 
idealized American history in much the same way 
that they have idealized their own history. Our 
national heroes — Washington, Franklin, Jeffer- 
son, and Lincoln — are as real to the French as 
they are to us, and the connection of Lafayette 
and Rochambeau with the birth of the United 
States is taught in French schools as it is taught 
in our schools. This feehng has been specially 
true under the Third Republic. We have been 
regarded as the sister democracy, different in 
manner of life and thought, different even in civi- 
» lization, but alike in ideals. It was not yesterday 
that a portrait, a bust of Frankhn or Washing- 
ton was placed in French mairies; and other 
cities besides Paris long ago gave the names of the 



6 France and Ourselves 

fathers of the American Revolution to streets 
and squares. 

In a spirit of historical detachment, far from 
the fray and unaffected by it, one may be success- 
ful in studying the causes leading up to the 
war and in pointing out their complexity and 
multiplicity. But the French did not do this. 
They could not do it. The storm broke, and 
broke upon them. The violation of Belgian neu- 
trality brought the Germanic hordes into France. 
Civilians suffered, provinces were devastated, and 
through their initial unfair advantage the Ger- 
mans were able to seize and hold northern 
France. The instinct of self-preservation called 
France to arms, but very quickly the defenders 
of their homes came to identify the national cause 
with that of human liberty and twentieth-century 
civilization. Before they had been in the war a 
week the Germans aroused in their opponents a 
feeling of moral revolt, dictated by international 
reasons fully as much as by national ones. 
Hence France looked to the United States not to 
help France in her own defense, the success of 



How We Can Help France % 

which was assured by the Battle of the Mame, 
but in the defense of the principles which all 
Frenchmen believed were as dear to Americans 
as to them. We Americans who lived in France 
during the first thirty tragic months of the war 
knew full well that our humanitarian efforts were 
of no avail in the face of the fact of American 
neutrality. We spoke of American sympathy, 
proved by relief contributions and by editorials 
of New York newspapers. But the French ideal 
of the United States demanded official action by 
Washington. I believe I am right in stating 
that, despite the sore need of our material aid, 
France would gladly have forgone all that Amer- 
icans were doing and could do for an official con- 
demnation by the American Government of the 
policy and the acts of Germany. 

At last the change — or was it the awakening? 
— came. Now we are allies of France. In time 
of war friends are synonymous with allies. Neu- 
trality may be natural, reasonable, expHcable, 
just; but what logic can be opposed to the 
thought, "He that is not with me is against me"? 



8 France and Ourselves 

Bygones are bygones. We have come into the 
war, and we have come in at the critical moment. 
We have come in whole-heartedly. Perhaps our 
aid is more appreciated for the timehness of it 
and the unexpectedness of it. If we do not fall 
into the error of assuming that we are the deus 
ex machina and of adopting the attitude of sav- 
iors, all will be well. 

We made a good beginning. Marshal Joffre 
was greeted in the United States with an outburst 
of enthusiasm and affection that put heart into 
the French nation at a moment of widespread 
discouragement. The April offensive had failed, 
the submarine menace was becoming alarming, 
and the state of anarchy in Russia was causing 
apprehension. The adoption of a series of prac- 
tical measures at Washington, coinciding with 
the reception of the French mission, proved that 
American cooperation was not going to be con- 
fined to manifestations of sentimental hysteria. 
No ally of France has acted more promptly and 
more advisedly. We voted conscription, placed 
immediately enormous sums at the disposal of 



How We Can Help France 9 

our allies, gave the President control over the 
export of food-stuffs, passed the espionage bill, 
promised active participation on the battle-fields 
of France, and sent a fleet of destroyers to Eu- 
rope as an earnest of our intention to sacrifice 
hfe as well as treasure in combating Germany. 

Efficient and decisive aid, however, cannot be 
given by us if we go to France with an imperfect 
or incorrect conception of the essential conditions 
of our cooperation. We must see problems as 
France sees them, and we must help to solve them 
in the French way and not in the American way, 
remembering that the war is being fought on 
French soil. Otherwise we shall fail, and gener- 
ous impulses will come to naught. Instead of a 
permanent understanding with France, there will 
be mutual disillusionment. Then the French will 
dislike us, and we shall dislike them. What calls 
more insistently for the rarest quafities and tact 
and delicacy than helping a friend? 

We are accustomed to regard France as a na- 
tion that has broken with traditions of the past 
and has evolved a democracy similar to our own. 



10 France and Ourselves 

We contrast French individualism with Ger- 
man conformity, and think that the French are 
freed from the shackles of convention by the 
democracy they have constituted. We contrast 
French gaiety with English dourness, and think 
that the French are hail-fellow-well-met Hke our- 
selves. Let us correct immediately and entirely 
these notions. And since we are going to France, 
and France is not coming to us, let us remember 
that we must try to understand their point of 
view without insisting upon their understanding 
ours. 

The French are bound by their past. De- 
spite revolutions and republics, they are hostile to 
new ideas and attach a tremendous importance to 
form. Both in thought and action they are less 
individualistic than the English. They are 
proud and sensitive and reserved. Then, too, 
the French have been keyed to the breaking- 
point of nervous tension during three years of 
war. We cannot expect them to be calm and pa- 
tient and grateful. If they need help badly, it is 
because they have borne the brunt of the German 



Hotv We Can Help France 11 

aggression. France has given everything, suf- 
fered eveiything, and sacrificed everything 
where her alHes have given and suffered and sac- 
rificed only in part. Russia, like France, has 
had enormous losses in fighting, and portions of 
her territory are now occupied by the enemy ; but 
Russia has more than twice the population of 
France, and the territories that the Germans hold 
are not an integral part of the Russian Empire 
or a vital part of Russia's economic life. Eng- 
land and Italy are not invaded, and their indus- 
tries have not been paralyzed by the mobiliza- 
tion and the maintenance on the front through 
years of their manhood population. 

We are going into a country the soil of which is 
consecrated by the life-blood of a million soldiers 
and desecrated by the German occupation. We 
are going among a people who have been and are 
still Hving in hell, and who stand undaunted and 
glorious in the midst of bereavement and desola- 
tion. It is the holy of holies that we are privi- 
leged to enter, and we must go in with bowed 
heads. We go to learn, not to teach, and the 



12 France and Ourselves 

man of us who says, "You ought never to have 
done it this way," or "I '11 show you how to do it," 
ought to be taken out and shot. 

Yes, I mean what I say. Lack of considera- 
tion, thoughtlessness, bluntness, impatience to re- 
form things, are qualities that have no place in the 
house of grief and suffering. Our opportunity 
to walk into the heart of France and to win the 
most precious national friendship on earth is 
unique ; but, oh, how we need insight and gentle- 
ness! The problems are open, bleeding war 
wounds, every single one — ^miHtary, political, 
economic, social. Of course one recognizes that 
many of them existed before the war or have been 
born of seed sown before the war. Many of 
them are due in part to defects in French charac- 
ter and French institutions. But the aggrava- 
tion and seriousness of the problems have one 
cause — the war. And if the problems do not ex- 
ist in England and Italy as they exist in France, 
it is because France is on the cross and the others 
are not. Congestion of ports, scarcity of ships, 
difficulties of railway transportation, bad repair 



How We Can Help France 13 

of rolling-stock, caring for the refugees, meeting 
the needs of the widows and orphans and muti- 
lated, fighting tuberculosis and prostitution, min- 
istering to the wounded, distributing food-stuffs 
and fuel to civiUans, finding money, regulating 
the economic life of the country, moving troops, 
provisioning the front — 'all these are the prob- 
lems that are confronting France and in the solu- 
tion of which our help is needed. 

Insight and gentleness. Can we have the in- 
sight unless we appreciate what France has been 
through, how these problems have arisen, and 
what the French think about them? Can we use 
the gentleness unless we put ourselves in the place 
of the dwellers in the house of grief and suffering 
and view the problems through their eyes? Let 
me cite only one illustration. An admirable 
movement was put on foot in the United States 
to raise a substantial fund for French war or- 
phans. It was a great idea, and an appeal could 
be made with peculiar force for the children of 
France who were deprived of their fathers. Had 
not the French fathers died for us, for the world. 



14 France and Ourselves 

as well as for their own children? But while an 
American committee could fittingly raise money 
for French orphans, it could not fittingly dis- 
tribute this money. No outsider, no matter how 
good a friend, could enter and exercise authority 
in French homes. He would encroach upon and 
influence rehgion and education, the precious pre- 
rogatives of the family and the state. An Amer- 
ican committee could not give money to sectarian 
organizations in France for the bringing up of 
orphans. No matter how perfect the good faith 
and intention of the givers, the nation would re- 
sent the money coming from abroad for this 
sacred purpose if it had a string attached to it. 
To distribute money is harder than to beg it; to 
give it away is harder than to make it. In the 
case of the orphans, intelligent friends of France 
will keep their money in their pockets unless it is 
to be handed over unostentatiously to a French 
committee, representative of and designated by 
the nation. 

We must be careful how we do things. We 
have to curb and keep in leash a natural instinct. 



How We Can Help France 15 

The typical American has his mind upon the 
goal. He is after results, and the way in which 
he accomplishes what is set before him he does 
not consider of much importance. The French- 
man, on the other hand, is hedged in from birth 
by form. There is a right and proper way to do 
everything, and one would rather not have it 
done at all than not do it in that way. The 
French pride themselves upon their individual- 
ism and their personal independence. They 
make fun of their governmental institutions and 
are remorseless critics of the bureaucracy and the 
pohce. But if you watch a Frenchman in discus- 
sion with a public official, a rare occurrence, you 
will notice that the crowd is invariably on the side 
of the representative of authority. The unfor- 
givable sin in France is not being en regie. 
Hence, however much one may protest, he con- 
forms; and established institutions and estab- 
lished procedure persist through revolutions and 
reactions just as they were in the olden days. 
When Bergson set forth his "philosophy of 
form," which was hailed as a novelty in Anglo- 



16 France and Ourselves 

Saxon countries, he was reflecting the Latin 
civilization to which he belonged. 

President Wilson, in the face of adverse criti- 
cism and pressure from all sides, dechned Mr. 
Roosevelt's offer to lead a volunteer army to 
France. He showed remarkable perspicacity. 
I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Roosevelt 
and his friends were actuated by the sole motive 
of wanting to serve France ; but their love of the 
French was greater than their knowledge of the 
French. Whatever their newspapers may have 
said, in the desire to avoid looking a gift-horse in 
the mouth, the people of France did not under- 
stand the Roosevelt scheme. It perplexed and 
wori'ied them. They would have interpreted its 
adoption as a sign that our Government did not 
have sufficient prestige among the American peo- 
ple to help France in the regular way, or that the 
American people were so opposed to the war that 
President Wilson was compelled to fall back 
upon private initiative and enterprise for mih- 
tary cooperation with the Entente powers. It 
was only when telegrams from Washington an- 



How We Can Help France 17 

nounced that General Pershing would command 
the first troops sent to France, and that these 
troops would be an official American army, that 
the French realized the significance of America's 
entry into the war. Now they know that the 
American nation, represented by the Government 
at Washington, is helping France. 

The primary and obvious form of aid to 
France is the sending of an army. Yet here also 
we have to exercise an unusual degree of self- 
restraint. The most spectacular help is always 
the easiest to give. While our flag on the French 
front is a sine qua non of the alliance, and while 
its moral effect cannot be overestimated in rela- 
tion to American public opinion, the extent of 
our military cooperation must not be determined 
by the longing for excitement and adventure and 
glory that is being awakened among our young 
men. If the French and American Govern- 
ments, working together in perfect harmony, de- 
cide that a large American army should be sent 
to France, well and good. But if other means 
of serving the common cause are pointed out to 



18 France and Ourselves 

us as more pressing and more vital, we must be 
ready to subordinate our generous impulses to 
the exigencies of the situation as it develops. 

It is probable that France is going to need 
ships and fuel and war material before she needs 
fighting men, and our factories and our granaries 
may continue to be, as they have been in the past, 
more essential than our armies. In every kind 
of human endeavor, where cooperation is neces- 
sary, directors of concerted effort find that ineffi- 
ciency in helpers is due to inability or unwilhng- 
ness to perform the service required. The diffi- 
culty is not in getting the workers, but in getting 
workers who will take positions they can fill and 
which need to be filled. This is the prime — if 
not the sole — reason for unemployment. In this 
war France looks to the American nation for aid. 
Our Government at Washington directs the en- 
terprise of aiding France. There will be unem- 
ployment, lack of opportunity to serve, only for 
those who want to dictate how they shall serve. 
The test of love for our own country as well as 
for France, of desire to help the world to a better 



How We Can Help France 19 

life after the cataclysm through which we are 
passing, comes right here. 

Whatever comhinazione French statesmen and 
diplomats may have dreamed of, whatever impe- 
rialistic aspirations may have received sanction 
in secret treaties between France and the other 
powers of the Entente, the voice of the people 
will count when it comes to the making of peace, 
and the people are not fighting for the advance- 
ment of selfish national interests. Only if Ger- 
many comes to the peace conference crushed and 
powerless, can the French public be seduced by 
the imperialists and led by the diplomats. There 
is an overwhelming sentiment in France that the 
objects of this war are the return of Alsace and 
Lorraine and the restoration of the invaded de- 
partments, with an indemnity for rehabihtation. 
For more than that France will not prolong the 
war, and France is not counting on American 
support to attain objects that are in conflict with 
French and American principles. We have a 
right, then, to believe and hope that comradeship 
in arms will lead to a durable entente between 



20 France and Ourselves 

France and the United States. That behef and 
hope form the basis of cooperation now. For 
otherwise, harmonious cooperation, even at this 
critical moment when om* aid is so precious, 
would be impossible. 

We must guard ourselves against the perni- 
cious and illogical notion, advanced by the un- 
thinking, that our aid is disinterested, and that 
we are giving it freely. There is a big difference 
between assuring our enemies that we covet noth- 
ing of theirs and assuring our friends that we look 
for no return for the help we give them. Bene- 
factors bestow largess upon inferiors: between 
equals there can be only a quid pro quo. With- 
out the idea of reciprocity our aid would be an 
insult to France. If we do not go to France 
with the idea that we are going to discharge an 
obligation that we have incurred, and are going 
for our own benefit fully as much as for the 
benefit of France, it would be wiser to stay at 
home. May we not have a false conception of 
our role in this war ! We go not to save France, 
but to assist France to save the world. 



How We Can Help France 21 

I started with the question, How can we help 
France? I cannot end without the question, 
How can France help us? For it would be a 
waste of time to consider the former without hav- 
ing simultaneously in mind the latter. Long 
ago, at the beginning of our national life, France 
did for us what we in small measure are trying to 
pay back now. But we have not grown beyond 
the need of what France can still give. Far 
from it. Over against our New World energy, 
our proud progress in science and in things mate- 
rial, stands France's Old World refinement and 
proud progress in thought and things spiritual. 
France can be our gateway to the Europe that 
we do not know, the Europe whose moderation 
and modesty are needed to temper our neophy- 
tism and self -consciousness. 

We are of mixed ancestry, but our political 
and social institutions, our literature and lan- 
guage, have stamped us in the Anglo-Saxon 
mold. With the good we have inherited the bad, 
and the bad has become accentuated in the un- 
formed, expansive life of our vast continent. 



22 France and Ourselves 

We have taken from England her two disagree- 
able Teutonic traits, race superiority and cant, 
which have been fostered in the British Empire 
and in the United States, as they have been in 
Prussia, by Protestantism. The Germans have 
waked up late to the philosophy of the Ueber- 
mensch and the dream of world supremacy. 
Anglo- Saxondom has long practised the one and 
tried to reahze the other. Alhance with the Brit- 
ish Empire would tend to increase our self- 
esteem and our arrogance and stimulate our be- 
lief in a world mission, had we not the splendid 
anchor to windward of the alliance with France, 
virile exponent of the undying Latin civilization. 
Germany of the Tugendhund might have grasped 
this anchor, and not have broken from her moor- 
ings. The anchor is strong enough to hold us; 
but we must realize that it is an anchor, and we 
must be wilhng to use it. 



CHAPTER II 

THE TIGER OF FRANCE^ 

EMPEROR FRAXCIS JOSEPH did not 
live long enough to enter Italy at the head 
of his army; but the next in order among un- 
dreamed-of events has actually happened with 
the return of Georges-Eugene-Benjamin Cle- 
menceau to the helm in France. Up to the last 
minute the wiseacres of the Palais-Bourbon, 
where sits the Chamber of Deputies, persisted in 
their belief that France's veteran pohtician and 
journalist could not become premier. They had 
every kind of good reason to give you. As if the 
ante-bellum record of "the Tiger" were not suf- 
ficiently damning from the politician's point of 
view, there could be added the three years of edi- 
torship of UHomme Libre, UHomme Mains 

1 November, 1917. 

23 



24 France and Ourselves 

Libre, and L'Homme Enchatne. Only the men 
too insignificant to waste ink upon had escaped 
the trenchant pen of "the Tiger." President 
Poincare; Premiers Viviani, Briand", Ribot, and 
Painleve; their coadjutors; ministers of foreign 
affairs and of war; generals of the armies; am- 
bassadors and ministers; Alhed statesmen; the 
pope; President Wilson and the rulers of all 
other neutral nations had received special atten- 
tion in the famous "leaders" of the newspaper 
held in abhorrence and suspicion by the French 
censorship. Political parties — all of them — ^were 
treated as unsparingly as their chiefs. 

To whom, then, especially in a country where 
political animosity is strong, especially at a time 
when international relations are "dehcate," would 
Georges Clemenceau be persona grata? It was 
the duty of the President of France to choose the 
successor to the premiership. The choice would 
have to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies. 
if Clemenceau were picked to succeed Painleve 
— and the hypothesis was incredible — ^would the 
magnanimity of Monsieur le President be shared 



The Tiger of France 25 

by Messieurs les Deputes? And what about the 
opposition of the Unified Socialists, who had sol- 
emnly pronounced in anticipation the exclusion 
of Clemenceau as a candidate for premiership? 
When Ribot tried to reform his cabinet, he failed 
because Padnleve declared that no cabinet could 
succeed when presented to the Chamber without 
the participation of the Unified Socialists. 
Later Painleve attempted to do what he felt 
Ribot could not do, and he found that his first 
opinion was true. 

The prophets were wrong. President Poin- 
care, overlooking his own personal reasons for 
dishking Clemenceau and the veto of the Unified 
SociaHsts, invited Clemenceau to form a ministry. 
"The Tiger" did not hesitate to accept the man- 
date from the hands of the man whom he had 
been holding up to scorn and ridicule ever since 
the war started. He had little difficulty in get- 
ting eminent men to serve with him, and secui*ed 
a vote of confidence with the overwhelming ma- 
jority of 418 against 65. Only Unified Socialists 
voted against him. Of the forty deputies who 



26 France and Ourselves 

refrained from voting, twenty-five were Unified 
Socialists. This means that all the Radicals and 
Radical Socialists except fifteen, all the Center 
and all the Right, gave their confidence to the 
Clemenecau cabinet. 

Why were the prophets wrong? Simply be- 
cause they had grown accustomed to look upon 
the formation of ministries as a matter of politi- 
cal bargaining and manoeuvering, the premier- 
elect choosing his ministers and setting forth his 
program with an eye to the likes and dislikes of 
parties and party leaders. Viviani adopted this 
plan a month after the war began. Briand and 
Ribot and Painleve followed in the same path. 
The politicians had forgotten the country, or at 
least they persisted in regarding the Chamber of 
Deputies as representing the country. Perhaps 
the Chamber of Deputies did represent France 
at the beginning of the war, but during this long 
struggle parliament and people have drifted 
apart. Clemenceau realized this. He did not 
have to depend upon securing collaborators who 
could carry the votes of his particular group, or 



The Tiger of France 27 

upon sweeping the deputies off their feet by an 
unexpectedly moving and virile setting forth of 
his program. He knew that the representatives 
of the people would not dare to refuse him their 
confidence. For France wanted Clemenceau, 
and president and parliament were not wilhng 
to oppose the country. Considerations of pa- 
triotism and of bowing before necessity dictated 
the choice of Clemenceau. 

Some telegrams to American and British news- 
papers stated that the remarkable speech of the 
new premier when he presented his ministry to 
the Chamber of Deputies on November 20th won 
him the support of the country and instilled new 
life and determination to continue the war to the 
bitter end. This is the opinion of superficial ob- 
servers, who reversed the roles. The nation ap- 
pealed to Clemenceau before Clemenceau ap- 
pealed to the nation. Support and confidence 
were offered to him before he spoke. Clemen- 
ceau as premier, despite the inclination of presi- 
dent and parliament, is the result, not the cause, 
of the remarkable war spirit in France, which. 



28 France and Ourselves 

deep down in the hearts of the people, has never 
flagged. 

During the summer and autumn of 1917 I en- 
joyed the privilege of traveling in every part of 
France. I found the people in a state of high 
nervous tension. The defection of Russia and 
the crushing defeat of Italy, coming in the fourth 
year of the war, would have been enough to dis- 
courage any nation that had suffered as France 
has suffered. But added to these outside disap- 
pointments were four grave facts of internal 
order, for which, rightly or wrongly, the French 
held their own Government and parliament re- 
sponsible: the fiasco of the Saloniki Expedition; 
the failure to put through any large offensive 
movement on the Western front ; general lack of 
confidence in the measures taken to provide agri- 
cultural laborers and to prevent a fuel and food 
famine for the coming winter; the half-hearted 
and inconclusive way in which the scandals affect- 
ing a former premier, a former minister of the 
interior, a former chief of secret pohce, a senator 
and editor of a prominent newspaper, a deputy. 



The Tiger of France 29 

and a president of a high court were being han- 
dled. 

The French were sick of speeches containing 
explanations of the past and promises for the 
future. They were sick of the censorship, which 
continued to keep them in ignorance about what 
was going on abroad and at home. They were 
willing to continue their appalling sacrifices in 
blood and treasure, but they wanted to be sure 
that these sacrifices were not being prolonged in 
vain. 

This state of the public mind was well known 
to President Poincare and the leaders of different 
political parties whom he called into consultation. 
When the Painleve ministry fell, Clemenceau be- 
came the man of the hour, because he was popu- 
larly supposed to be the embodiment of the 
growing spirit of protest against the way the war 
and internal affairs have been managed. He 
had denounced the placing of party above na- 
tional interests, the blind attachment of parlia- 
mentarians to old methods, the formation of min- 
istries through political deals, the criminal stu- 



30 France and Ourselves 

pidity of the censorship, the tendency to go off at 
a tangent in miHtary operations (witness the Sa- 
loniki Epedition, which he bitterly opposed from 
the moment of its conception), the lack of deci- 
sion and concerted policy in the whole conduct of 
the war, the improvidence in national fuel and 
food supplies, the inability of administrative bu- 
reaucrats to face and solve the transportation 
crisis, and the unwillingness of successive pre- 
miers and cabinet ministers to punish persons and 
groups in France who consciously or uncon- 
sciously were playing Germany's game. 

In asking Clemenceau to form a ministry. 
President Poincare heeded the insistent and 
warning cry of the nation: "Give us a premier 
who will use all the energies and resources of 
France to defeat Germany, who will see that we 
have fuel and food, and who will not allow our 
armies to be assailed from the rear through paci- 
fist propaganda and through strikes inspired by 
German money!" 

What France expects of Clemenceau is to play 
the role of a Moses and a Joshua combined. No 



The Tiger of France 31 

Frenchman since Thiers has undertaken a task so 
difficult, so dehcate, so splendid. Like Thiers, 
Clemenceau brings to the task half a century of 
pubHc life. He celebrated his seventy-third 
birthday shortly after the Battle of the Marne. 
His active poHtical career began with the Sep- 
tember Revolution of 1870, and covers the entire 
period between two wars. At no time during the 
Third Republic has Premier Clemenceau been a 
negligible factor in French politics. After in- 
teresting experiences in the United States, where 
he saw the close of the Civil War and the early 
years of Reconstruction (he remembers as vividly 
as if it were yesterday being present at the open- 
ing of Virginia's negro legislature), he returned 
to Paris to complete his medical studies. The 
year after he received his degree the Second Em- 
pire fell, and Clemenceau entered political life as 
Mayor of Montmartre. He represented Paris 
in the National Assembly of 1871. From 1875 
to 1893 he sat in the Chamber of Deputies on the 
extreme Left. Since 1902 he has been a senator. 
From 1906 to 1909 he was premier. During his 



32 France and Ourselves 

long parliamentary career those three years were 
his only opportunity to participate in the govern- 
ment of France. The rest of the time he was a 
member of the opposition, and as deputy and 
senator and journalist he enjoyed the reputation 
of having caused the overthrow of more minis- 
tries than any other Frenchman since France has 
had representative government. 

Never has Clemenceau shown more violent op- 
position to "the powers that be" than during the 
present war, and that is saying a great deal. 
How strange it is that the man who is unani- 
mously considered the greatest destructive politi- 
cal force of the Third Republic is now called 
upon to save France ! 

Strange, illogical perhaps, but altogether natu- 
ral. When heroic measures are needed, unusual 
men are called for. The instinct of a nation in 
danger can be trusted. France is in danger now. 
She is not apt to choose wrongly. At crises the 
man of the moment comes forth. Clemenceau 
has the keen wisdom of old age without having 
lost the ardor and energy and power of decision 



The Tiger of France 33 

of youth. He is absolutely without fear. He 
has no political future to think about, no obliga- 
tions to bind him, no friends to spare. 

In estimating the chances of success of the new 
premier, the most important factor is that he is 
the nation's choice. Politicians who listen to 
their personal feelings and their personal in- 
terests and try to make life difficult or impos- 
sible for the Clemenceau ministry will have 
the nation against them and will assume a 
terrible responsibihty. If Georges Clemenceau, 
with the inspiration of the knowledge that 
France stands behind him, knows how to lead to 
victory, he need not fear parhamentary obstruc- 
tion. For the sake of our common victory, let us 
hope that he does know how to lead and that the 
people know how to follow. 



CHAPTER III 



WORLD JUSTICE FOR FRANCE ^ 



BEFORE August 1, 1914, the leaders in the 
political and intellectual life of France had 
given up hope of the return of the lost provinces. 
Most of them deplored the propaganda of a few 
eocaUes, in which they saw a menace to the rela- 
tions between France and Germany. The Peace 
of Frankfort was regarded as having definitely 
settled the status of Alsace and Lorraine. Even 
after Agadir, France remained profoundly paci- 
fist. The Alsatians and Lorrainers realized this. 
They saw clearly that France did not intend to 
become the aggressor in a European war. Ger- 
many had proved herself stronger than France 
in 1870, and every decade since then had seen 
Germany grow more rapidly than France in pop- 
ulation and in wealth. To offset this increasing 

1 January, 1918. 

34 



World Justice for France 35 

inferiority, France made an alliance with Russia 
and an entente with Great Britain. But both 
these arrangements were purely defensive. 
Whatever German apologists may write about 
the ante-bellum encirchng policy of their present 
enemies, they are unable to cite a single text in 
the arrangements between France on the one 
hand, and Russia and Great Britain on the other, 
to justify the inference, let alone the fact, of an 
aggressive coalition. France devoted her ener- 
gies to extra-European expansion. If her diplo- 
macy can be said to have been detrimental to 
German interests or to have hampered Germany, 
the conflict of interests was in Africa and not 
in Europe. Alsace-Lorraine and the Peace of 
Frankfort were not in question. 

Those who were most interested in the attitude 
of France toward Alsace and Lorraine were 
naturally the inhabitants of the lost provinces. 
If any could be expected and relied upon to inter- 
pret accurately French public opinion and the 
aims of French diplomacy, they were the Alsa- 
tian leaders. Despite the many incidents that 



36 Prance and Ourselves 

followed the granting of a wholly inadequate 
constitution in 1910, despite the false interpreta- 
tion that might have been given to the Agadir 
crisis in 1911, the Alsatian irreconcilables did not 
look to France for aid. Quite the contrary. 
Instead of asking for a revision of the Peace of 
Frankfort, they made autonomy their program, 
and insisted that their anti-Prussian agitation 
had as its aim only, to quote the words of Herr 
Wolff, "the elevation of Alsace-Lorraine to the 
rank of an independent and federated state, like 
the other twenty-five component parts of the 
German Empire." On May 6, 1912, the follow- 
ing motion, presented by leaders of four of the 
poHtical groups in the Reichsland, was voted 
without discussion by the Landtag: 

The Chamber invites the Staathalter to instruct the 
representatives of Alsace-Lorraine in the Bundesrath 
to use all the force thej possess against the idea of a 
war between Germany and France, and to influence the 
Bundesrath to examine the ways which might possibly 
lead to a rapprochement between France and Germany, 
which rapprochement will furnish the means of putting 
an end to the race of armaments. 



World Justice for France 37 

What more striking, more conclusive proof of the 
contention, first, that the French Government 
was not a party, even indirectly, to the agitation 
for self-government in Alsace-Lorraine, and, sec- 
ondly, that the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine 
had no reason to believe that France intended to 
be drawn into a war for their liberation and re- 
turn to the status of French provinces ? ^ 

Germany cannot reproach France with not 
having stood loyally by the treaty she was com- 
pelled to sign at Frankfort. Nor can Germany 
reproach the people that she took forcibly from 
France with not having done their best to adapt 
themselves to the changed political allegiance 
rather than have Europe once more plunged into 
a bloody war on their account. Germany had 
her chance during forty-three years to assimi- 
late Alsace-Lorraine without interference from 
France or France's friends. Europe, the whole 
world, accepted the Peace of Frankfort. Alsa- 
tians and Lorrainers, although they could not 

1 For a fuller discussiion of this important question, see my 
"New Map of Europe" (9th American edition), pp. 1-20. 



38 France and Ourselves 

acquiesce in the treaty of which they were the vic- 
tims, submitted to force, and as time passed with 
no attempt on the part of France to win them 
back, they tried to make the best of the terrible 
situation in which they were placed. If in 1914 
there was still an Alsace-Lorraine question, the 
fault was entirely Germany's. No fair-minded 
man who reads the history of Alsace and Lor- 
raine under German rule can possibly arrive at 
any other opinion than this. 

When on the morning of August 2, 1914, the 
Germans crossed the frontier of France near 
Longwy, they annulled by their own act the 
Peace of Frankfort. They themselves brought 
up again, for decision by the test of arms, the fate 
of the lost provinces. France had to accept the 
challenge. This time, however, the war delib- 
erately entered upon did not turn out to be a duel 
between two unequally matched nations and did 
not end quickly, as the Germans confidently ex- 
pected, in the crushing of France. Great Brit- 
ain entered the war on the side of France. 
Other nations, forced into the struggle by Ger- 



World Justice for France 39 

many's disregard of treaty obligations and their 
own sovereignty and interests, joined what has 
come to be virtually a world coalition. Only if 
Germany is successful in dictating her own terms 
of peace at the point of the sword will she be able 
to prevent many questions, among which that of 
Alsace-Lorraine is one of the most important, 
from coming before the Areopagus of nations. 
Sensing the impossibility of victory by arms, Ger- 
many is already preparing throughout the world 
a propaganda to confuse and mislead the jury, if 
she fails to prevent the meeting of the jury by 
corrupting the jurors. 

The Central powers, during the year 1917, by 
skilful manipulation and leadership of their 
armies, were able to gain new victories. But the 
odds against Germany and Austria- Hungary, 
from the purely military point of view, are too 
great to secure their final triumph on the field of 
battle. With the lesson of what has happened in 
Russia and Italy before us, however, we should 
be fools to believe that their chances are equally 
poor of winning by diplomacy what is denied 



40 Prance and Ourselves 

them by arms. Even if the powers of the En- 
tente coalition hold together long enough to de- 
feat Germany and her allies and assume to pass 
judgment upon the vanquished, there remains the 
hope of confusing, of tricking, the jurors. De- 
mocracies are inherently weak in waging war. 
Each one of Germany's enemies has been handi- 
capped by the difficulty of securing and main- 
taining unity in the internal body politic. 
Unity in the conduct of the war has so far proved 
impossible of attainment. Unless there is a de- 
termined effort in each of the Allied countries to 
educate public opinion on leading questions that 
must be met and solved, the weakness of the coali- 
tion in war will be found to have been a less 
important disaster than the weakness of the coa- 
lition in making peace. For, since the war has 
become a war in which every family in the bellig- 
erent nations is called upon to contribute blood 
and treasure, the people will inevitably decide for 
themselves the objects for which they are fight- 
ing. For the first time in history the public 
opinion of nations, not the private opinion of 



World Justice for France 41 

statesmen, will indicate the solutions to give to 
the questions before the peace conference. 

Public opinion plays a more immediate role, 
in fact. Stupendous sacrifices in human lives, 
unprecedented financial demands upon the pres- 
ent and the futui'e generations, have not enabled 
all of us together to bring Germany to her knees. 
It is mathematically sure that if we stick it out 
we shall have the victory. But the people who 
are paying the price want to understand clearly 
what the objectives are and what the objectives 
signify for each of the nations at war and for the 
world as a whole. Our statesmen cannot be too 
clearly warned that none of the belligerents in- 
tends to pull chestnuts out of the fire for another, 
and that those who have borne the brunt of the 
burden must not be kept indefinitely in uncer- 
tainty concerning our ideas of the temis of peace. 
All the Allied leaders are facing a situation 
where the exact objects for which the armies are 
fighting must be kept before the people clearly 
and unequivocally. These governmental aims 
must be satisfactory to the people. The differ- 



42 France and Ourselves 

ent Allied peoples wiU have to satisfy one an- 
other. 

Alsace-Lorraine is a concrete illustration of the 
vital importance of our taking a stand on Euro- 
pean problems. Competent observers of Ameri- 
can thought tell me that in America there is no 
widespread, clearly pronounced national senti- 
ment which insists upon the return of Alsace- 
Lorraine to France. If the American Govern- 
ment is committed to back France to the bitter 
end in this question, the Americans do not seem 
to know it. The French certainly do not. And 
yet winning back Alsace-Lorraine has become to 
the French the principal object of the war. I 
say this without hesitation. France would not 
have gone to war to win back Alsace and Lor- 
raine, but the moment Germany attacked France 
the pent-up feelings of forty-three years broke 
loose. By those who did not know France, Mar- 
shal JoflPre has been criticized for the initial, ill- 
fated expedition to Mulhouse and his proclama- 
tion to the Alsatians. The criticism is absurd. 
Joffre could not help himself. The Mulhouse 



World Justice for France 43 

expedition was France's answer to German ag- 
gression. Heart, not mind, rules in the great 
moments of life. 

In the middle of August, 1914, before the years 
of sorrow began, France's first fortnight of the 
war was summed up in a sketch Georges Scott 
made for U Illustration. An Alsatian girl was 
clasped in the arms of a French soldier. A 
fallen frontier post marked Deutsches Reich lay- 
on the ground beside them. Under the sketch 
was one simple word, ''Enfin!" The sketch was 
reprinted by the hundreds of thousands. I have 
seen it in the trenches and in the rest camps 
everywhere along the French front, and I have 
seen it in the homes of patrician and bourgeois 
and peasant all over France. For a few months 
unpleasant experiences of the French troops in 
the retreat from Mulhouse and the discovery of 
false Alsatians domiciled in France caused a cer- 
tain reaction in the attitude of the French toward 
the lost provinces. As the French came to real- 
ize that they had confused the German immigres 
with real Alsatians, the feeling quickly passed. 



44 France and Ourselves 

Far from being a sign of lack of sympathy, mis- 
understanding and coolness at the beginning 
showed how deeply the French felt about Alsace 
and Lorraine. One is most sensitive about what 
is most precious. In the declarations of succes- 
sive ministries and in the press since the early 
months of 1915, the return of Alsace and Lor- 
raine has been a subject upon which difference of 
opinion does not exist among Frenchmen. 

Before the war, also, there was no difference of 
opinion about what would happen if a European 
war did break out. Frenchmen of the present 
generation have been brought up from infancy to 
regard Alsace and Lorraine as French. The 
French mind, however, with its admirable quality 
of seeing and facing facts, believed the stolen 
goods recoverable only by a miracle. The 
French did not labor under the delusion that they 
would be able \6 win back the lost provinces in a 
war in which they stood alone against Germany, 
and they realized that no other nation would join 
them in attacking Germany for the purpose of 
wresting Alsace and Lorraine from the German 



World Justice for France 45 

Confederation. To understand the paradox of 
those who prayed for the miracle to happen and 
yet shrank from the ordeal of a European war, 
we must realize that France since 1870 has hved 
in Gethsemane. The cross was always there, but 
— "let this cup pass from me." I feel as if I 
were trying to analyze something too sacred for 
words. The analysis, however, has to be made. 
We Americans simply must understand. 

It wounds Frenchmen to hear Englishmen and 
Americans interpret the demand for the return 
of Alsace and Lorraine as a question of revenge 
or of winning back territory. Our comrades-in- 
arms regard Alsace and Lorraine in a different 
light. To them the return of Alsace and Lor- 
raine is a question of honor, of justice, of patri- 
otism. 

It is a question of honor. When the declara- 
tion of the deputies of Alsace and Lorraine was 
read at Bordeaux, and no answer could be given, 
shame and humiliation entered the soul of the 
French nation. The inhabitants of the eastern 
departments had fought loyally during the war 



46 France and Ourselves 

of 1870. France, having failed to defend them, 
purchased peace from the victor at the price of 
their slavery. After the transfer was made the 
inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine continued to 
call to France. France was powerless to listen 
to their cry. The white-haired Frenchmen of 
to-day have never been allowed to forget the dis- 
honor of their youth, and their children have in- 
herited the shame and humiliation. Now France 
is fighting to wipe out the stain, to redeem the 
honor of the nation. There is joy in the cruci- 
fixion. But if it be not for redemption, the sacri- 
fices of France are irreparable, and there will be 
death to this people, not resurrection. 

It is a question of justice. The French are 
chivalrous by nature. They are keen about the 
wrongs of all subject races, and are as thoroughly 
imbued with the ideal of "the consent of the gov- 
erned" as are Anglo-Saxons. The determina- 
tion to continue to fight for the attainment of 
this ideal is enhanced in the particular case of 
Alsace and Lorraine by the fact that the people 
of the lost provinces have suffered for nearly half 



World Justice for France 47 

a century through France's own fault. The dip- 
lomatic blunders of Napoleon III and his minis- 
ters, the incompetent management and leadership 
of French generals, the hasty proclamation of 
the republic, made it possible for Germany to 
oppress Alsace and Lorraine. If the war does 
not end in undoing the wrongs nearest home, for 
what reason has France been fighting? There 
are obligations to Belgium and Serbia and other 
allies, but France rightly puts first the obligation 
to those of her own household. 

It is a question of patriotism. The increase 
of wealth and population and territory through 
the return of Alsace and Lorraine to the mother 
country is no small stake to fight for, and it is a 
justifiable one, since it means taking back what 
has been stolen. But material considerations 
have little weight in this war, the prolonging of 
which is costing France far more than what Al- 
sace and Lorraine could mean in compensation. 
It would be folly, not patriotism, to continue to 
fight for material gain where the outlay is greater 
than the stake. France did not fully reaHze how 



4)8 France and Ourselves 

essential a part of the nation were the eastern de- 
partments until she lost them. The Third Re- 
public has suffered more than can be measured 
by the amputation of a member of the national 
body. Like the populations of the Pas-de-Calais 
and the other northern and northeastern depart- 
ments, the Alsatians and Lorrainers are an in- 
dispensable element of equilibrium in the political 
and economic and social structure of France. 
Patriotism, quite as much as honor and a sense of 
justice, cries out against the conclusion of a peace 
that does not stipulate the return, pure and sim- 
ple, of Alsace and Lorraine. For Frenchmen 
believe that the maintenance of the frontier along 
the Vosges would mean political and social injury 
of a mortal character. 

So much for the sentiment and for the interest 
of France. The coaHtion against the Central 
powers is also interested in the return of Alsace 
and Lorraine to France. 

We are fighting for a durable peace, we say. 
Can this durable peace be secured otherwise than 
by the substitution of right for force in interna- 



World Justice for France 49 

tional relations, by the removal of historic causes 
of conflict between nations, and by the reestab- 
lishment of all the belligerents within their legiti- 
mate bomidaries? If we envisage peace solely 
as the forcing of the will of the conquerors upon 
the conquered, where, then, is the substitution of 
right for force? In every belligerent country 
the violent partizans, the cynics, and the reac- 
tionaries are banded together to combat the idea 
of the society of nations, and those who have 
taken at face-value the declared principles of the 
belligerents are called dreamers and dangerous 
fools. The great error of this war is the tend- 
ency to confuse the two terms, victory and peace. 
We must fight poison with poison, is the argu- 
ment. Ergo, we shall have the victory only by 
doing as the Prussians do. All well and good. 
But if we go on to the next step and maintain 
that we must make peace as the Prussians would 
make it, we mock our dead. Are we crying out 
against the horror of a German peace, and in the 
same breath preparing to imitate what we con- 
sider no sacrifice too great to prevent our arch- 



50 France and Ourselves 

enemy from doing? If we are not idealists, we 
are realists. If we are realists, what is the differ- 
ence between ourselves and our enemies? The 
defeat of Germany is not an end. It is a means 
to an end. The end is the establishment of the 
principle that right makes might. 

It is a pity that polemicists frequently fall into 
the trap of putting together clear and debatable 
issues. When they fail to see distinctions and 
when they make analogies where there is no anal- 
ogy, they do not serve the cause in which their 
pens are enlisted. "Going the whole hog" is dan- 
gerous. Absurd exaggerations of Polish claims 
and the attempt to put the aspirations of Itahan 
irredentism on the same footing as France's title 
to Alsace-Lorraine are examples of this. The 
successful pleader is he who knows what to leave 
out of his brief. Irredentist arguments, based 
on historical and ethnological considerations, can 
be met by exactly the same sort of reasoning on 
the other side. The question of Alsace-Lorraine 
is unique among the issues of the war. It must 
not be confused with certain aims of Italy, or 



World Justice for France 51 

with the revival of medieval states, some of which 
never existed as we conceive national organisms 
to-day. 

The programs of partizans for remaking the 
map of Europe reveal the ignorance and incon- 
sistency of those who present them. They are 
conceived not with the idea of rendering justice, 
but with the thought of breaking the power of 
the enemy. There is no effort to distinguish be- 
tween territories incorporated in their present po- 
litical jurisdiction before the inhabitants as a 
whole had developed national consciousness and 
territories whose present political status was a 
violation of the will of the people concerned at 
the moment it was established, and has remained 
a violation of their will ever since. Of the latter 
category, Alsace-Lorraine stands out as the one 
clear case against Germany. 

Hence the members of the coalition against the 
Central powers have a common interest in insist- 
ing upon the return of Alsace-Lorraine to 
France. Restoration to their rightful jurisdic- 
tion of the provinces wrested from France by 



52 France and Ourselves 

force in 1870 will be the tangible symbol of our 
victory. It will mean the trimnph of the princi- 
ple for which we are fighting. It will prove to 
our enemies that we have been able to succeed in 
what we have set before us, the refutation of the 
doctrine that national expansion secured and 
maintained by force can receive the assent of the 
world. For a new order in international rela- 
tions will be bom of this war only by the aban- 
donment of the doctrine of Cain that has hereto- 
fore been the basis of international polity. Un- 
less our own national interests have dictated to us 
the wisdom of opposing a neighbor's title by force 
of arms, we have invariably accepted de facto 
extensions and changes of sovereignty. There 
never has been an international conscience. 
When we thought our own interests were at 
stake, we howled and sometimes backed our pro- 
tests by force. Otherwise, we shrugged our 
shoulders, and said, '"Laissez-faire!" 

The future of Alsace-Lorraine is not a ques- 
tion between France and Germany. It is a 
question between the world and Germany, and 



World Justice for France 53 

we must see it that way. If Europe has been an 
armed camp since 1870, if the theft of Alsace- 
Lorraine was the beginning of a long prepara- 
tion that visited upon the world its present calam- 
ities, is Germany alone to blame? What nation 
went to the aid of France at that time? What 
nation listened to the cry of distress of Alsatians 
and Lorrainers ? What nation refused to accept 
the Peace of Frankfort? Because we tolerated 
this crime against civilization we all have our di- 
rect responsibility. Only those who strike their 
own breasts, with a sincere repetition of mea 
culpa, are successful in leading sinners to repent- 
ance. 

But we cannot treat the question of Alsace- 
Lorraine solely from the French and interna- 
tional point of view. The reader who is far away 
from the bitterness and passion of the war and 
who is not impregnated with the feeling of 
France about Alsace-Lorraine will ask pointedly, 
"Is the milk spilt?" He will not be satisfied 
with assertions of the continued loyalty of Alsa- 
tians and Lorrainers to France unless these as- 



54 France and Ourselves 

sertions are supported by facts. Forty-seven 
years is a long time, and the Anglo-Saxon world 
is not ready to accept the French contention, 
voiced by Monsieur Ribot, that "a title based on 
right cannot be outlawed." Whatever the basis 
of the title, time does outlaw. The world has 
moved forward rapidly, and the economic and 
social changes of the last half century are of a 
sweeping character. Because of the political 
evolution of nations, through universal education 
and universal suffrage, we have no right to as- 
sume that the children are bound by the action of 
their fathers or that they accept the judgments 
of their fathers. None can deny that the forcible 
incorporation of Alsace-Lorraine into the Ger- 
man Confederation was a violation of the prin- 
ciple of "the consent of the governed" in 1870. 
It does not follow per se, however, that the re- 
tention of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Con- 
federation is a violation of that principle in 
1918. 

France's reasons for demanding the return of 
Alsace-Lorraine are convincing to her friends 



World Justice for France 55 

and allies. It is clear, also, that their interests 
— destroying German militarism and vindicating 
international morality — dictate a support of 
France's demand. But unless we are sure that 
the present generation wants to become French, 
the right and the wisdom of the restoration are 
open to question. 

Now we have come to the very heart of the 
problem. Two questions arise. Are the lost 
provinces in the German Confederation against 
their will? Do they want to be reincorporated 
in France? Polemicists make these questions 
one and the same thing, and try to give a com- 
mon answer. The result is that what they advo- 
cate lacks conviction to the impartial reader. In 
the eyes of the seeker after the truth, who does 
not intend to be misled or fooled, the case for 
France is not helped by briefs in which strong 
points and weak points, statements based on 
fact and inferences, are presented together as 
of equal value. A study of the polemical lit- 
erature of the Alsace-Lorraine question shows 
how cleverly the Germans have attempted to 



56 Prance and Ourselves 

strengthen their case by attacking the debatable 
arguments of their opponent. 

Are the lost provinces in the German Confed- 
eration against their will? Yes. The proofs? 
Here they are: (1) proceedings of the Reichs- 
tag from 1871 to 1914 inclusive; (2) editorials 
and news columns of the papers of Strasbourg, 
Mulhouse, Colmar, and Metz, which fairly rep- 
resent the whole of Alsace-Lorraine; (3) the 
testimony of ecclesiastics, Catholic and Protes- 
tant alike, who know the feeling of the people; 
(4) the attitude of the land-owning and indus- 
trial bourgeois classes; (5) the widespread re- 
fusal of young Alsatians and Lorrainers of all 
classes, in the face of exile, confiscation of prop- 
erty, and death, to serve in the German armies. 

(1) The official reports of the sessions of the 
Reichstag show that the deputies of Alsace-Lor- 
raine have never ceased to protest against their 
political status. These deputies were elected by 
universal suffrage, and their sentiments were 
known to their constituents. In the course of 
debates members of the Reichstag from other 



World Justice for France 57 

parts of Germany have frequently admitted that 
the Alsace-Lorraine members were interpreting 
accurately the opinion of those whom they rep- 
resented. Most striking is the evidence afforded 
by the official proceedings in 1910, 1911, and 
1913. When the present war broke out the most 
prominent Alsatians and Lorrainers in the 
Reichstag fled from Germany and have carried 
on ever since their campaign of protest in France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. I know 
some of these men. Their record is clear. Fear- 
less and of unquestioned integrity, they have sac- 
rificed everything to represent their constituents 
before the public opinion of the world. 

(2) Fortunately, just as members of the 
Reichstag were elected by universal suffrage and 
could speak freely, there was also liberty of the 
press in Germany. Newspaper editors, writers, 
and cartoonists were sometimes prosecuted and 
always persecuted by the German authorities. 
But there was no preventive censorship. In the 
newspaper files, which give the history of Alsace- 
Lorraine during the forty-three years between 



58 France and Ourselves 

the two wars, written from day to day by people 
on the spot, we have not only the opinion of edi- 
torial writers and cartoonists, but also the freshly 
recorded facts concerning events as they took 
place. The year 1913 shows no change from the 
year 1872. I was personally interested in the 
question of Alsace-Lorraine before the present 
war, and between the years of 1910 and 1914 
I have corroborated the statements of outside 
writers by consulting the newspapers of the lo- 
cality where these events occurred. So there is 
no doubt in my mind about the accuracy of 
what has been written to show the hostihty of 
Alsatians and Lorrainers of the present gen- 
eration to Germany and to their position in the 
German Confederation. The facts are against 
German polemicists who assert that this hostil- 
ity is shown by a few irreconcilables. 

(3) German supporters among the ecclesi- 
astics of Alsace-Lorraine are almost without ex- 
ception immigres. In talking to priests and pas- 
tors of Alsatian birth I have not found one who 
does not tell me that the members of his flock 



World Justice for France 59 

are anti-German. Since 1870, even when Ger- 
man menaces came in the form of orders from 
ecclesiastical superiors and meant the sacrifice of 
preferment, the clergy and the religious orders 
remained obdurate. During the decade before 
the present war the CathoHc Church had just 
grievances against France. In 1914, however, 
wherever the French returned into Alsatian ter- 
ritory, they were received with open arms by the 
local clergy. Contrast this attitude with that of 
the Belgian clergy in face of the German inva- 
sion. The religious orders dropped with alacrity 
German teaching in the schools and, although 
French was to many of them a less famihar lan- 
guage, they started to use it at once. No pres- 
sure was brought to bear by the French mihtary 
authorities inside or outside the schools. In 
view of the pro-Germanism of many CathoHc 
prelates and priests in Spain and Italy, these 
facts are most significant. Most of the immigres 
are Protestant; but the aristocracy of landed 
proprietors and the wealthy industrial bour- 
geoisie, the strongest elements of undying hos- 



60 France and Ourselves 

tility to Germany, are also Protestant. Pastors 
have proved themselves as implacable enemies of 
Germanism as are the priests. The religious 
question, then, does not enter in. 

(4) In "The New Map of Africa" I wrote: 

Personal observation on the ground has taught me 
that in the countries of whose nationalist and irreden- 
tist movements we hear so much, the prime movers and 
agitators are college professors and professional men 
and students who have little or nothing to risk or lose 
by a change of government. Landowners and manu- 
facturers and business men rarely allow their heart to 
run away with their head. They know which side their 
bread is buttered on. They worship the golden calf of 
a status quo} 

It is precisely because this statement is not true 
of Alsace-Lorraine that Alsace-Lorraine is 
unique among the questions of territorial change 
for which the belligerents are fighting. The lost 
provinces of France have benefited materially 
with the rest of Germany in the marvelous eco- 
nomic prosperity of the last few decades. We 
might argue that this prosperity would have 
come anyway, had Alsace-Lorraine remained 

1 See "The New Map of Africa" (3d American edition), p. 430. 



World Justice for France 61 

French. But the fact of material benefit re- 
mains. Hence the failure of Germany to as- 
similate Alsace-Lorraine is all the more striking. 
The undying protest of those who have seen their 
lands increase in value and their factories in out- 
put is eloquent testimony of the truth that man 
does not hve by bread alone. 

I have resided in Turkey among the Armen- 
ians, and have been eye-witness of massacres. 
And yet I say that contemporary history records 
no more pitiful, no more heartrending martyrdom 
than that of the people of Alsace-Lorraine un- 
der German rule. For they have had to will to 
suffer. I wish it were in my power to forget 
some of the stories told me by all classes of Al- 
satians, the simple record of their family life. 
If one wants to realize the heinousness of the 
Peace of Frankfort, the absence of the quality 
of mercy in German official classes, the perver- 
sion of natural instincts of German imperiahsts, 
let him talk to fathers and mothers and wives 
and children among cultivated Alsatians and 
Lorrainers. Let him listen to the young men 



62 France and Ourselves 

who have not been able to escape wearing the hel- 
met that is at the same time the brand of shame 
and the badge of slavery. Those whose memory 
goes back before 1870 may say: 

"Nessun maggior dolore 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miseria." 

But the younger generation has never known 
one day of happiness, and does not agree with 
Dante. To the boys, as they grew to adoles- 
cence, German rule meant either wearing the 
uniform of the hated conqueror or a life of exile 
far from loved ones. The girls had no choice. 
Born and raised in an atmosphere of grief, if 
they have married, it has been with the prayer 
that God would spare them the anguish of hav- 
ing sons. 

I am not exaggerating. Any Alsatian whose 
family beheved that the higher patriotism was 
staying in the country and submitting to the 
Germans would assure you that "hell" is not 
too strong a word to describe his life. One 
mother told me that she gave up all her sons 



World Justice for France 63 

when they reached the age of thirteen and has 
never had them in her home since; another, in 
the presence of her yomig daughters, said she 
would rather see them prostitutes than married 
to Germans; another, that, when her husband 
was dying, her son, on the French side of the 
frontier, climbed a liigh tree in the Vosges to 
try to look down into the valley of his home 
town. He knew, and in the mad frenzy of his 
grief tried to slip by the German guards. But 
they turned him back. 

T\nio would dare to say that the martyrdom, 
because it was self-imposed, has no claim to sym- 
pathy? A proud race does not submit to the 
yoke of the conqueror, and only those call the 
vanquished fools who are themselves without 
honor and without traditions. If the Alsatians 
have been fools to choose during all these years 
to refuse to become reconciled to a government 
maintained by force of arms, then Washington 
and his companions were fools to suffer at Valley 
Forge; all who have cried, "Give me Hberty or 
give me death," have been fools. 



64 France and Ourselves 

(5) At the time of the cession of Alsace-Lor- 
raine to Germany it was difficult for the victims 
to decide what was best to do. Hundreds of 
thousands, immediately or during the period of 
transition that followed, chose France and went 
into exile. Others felt that it was their duty to 
stay and keep alive the protest. They believed 
that the fortune of arms might soon bring them 
back to France, while, on the other hand, if they 
moved out and let the Germans have their will, 
Alsace and Lorraine would be permanently lost 
to France. So they chose the harder part. In 
the course of time, when the situation seemed to 
become permanent and a new generation was 
bom and came to manhood, the younger Alsa- 
tians had to face obligatory military service. 
This was too great a humiliation for the culti- 
vated classes. They did not oppose, but rather 
encouraged, their sons to leave. 

It is impossible to give exact figures of Alsa- 
tians and Lorrainers who chose exile rather than 
service in the German army. We do know, how- 
ever, that the stream of young men from Alsace- 



World Jiistice for France 65 

Lorraine to the other side of the Vosges never 
ceased. Even those who did their service in Ger- 
many could not bring themselves to fight with 
Germany. During the mobilization there were 
desertions by the thousands, and since 1914, Al- 
satians and Lorrainers have deserted on the East- 
ern as well as on the Western front whenever 
there was an opportunity. More than twenty 
thousand young men under thirty, who completed 
their military training in Germany, are serving 
to-day in the French Army. More than a hun- 
dred thousand others who were born in the lost 
provinces are wearing the French uniform. This 
refutes the German calumny that the motive of 
Alsatian desertion has been to shirk military 
duties. 

Words count for little. If Alsatians and Lor- 
rainers limited their protests against belonging 
to Germany to talk, we might well question their 
sincerity. But when they back up their protests 
by willingness to sacrifice life and property, do 
we want other proof of their attitude? It seems 
incredible that Herr von Kuhlmann should have 



66 Prance and Ourselves 

dared recently to pay a tribute to "the loyalty of 
Alsace-Lorraine to the German fatherland" in 
face of the following facts which deal with the 
year of our Lord 1917. (1) There are two Al- 
satian officers of pure blood in the German 
Army, while France has generals Maud'huy, 
d'Urbal, Micheler, Dubail, Mangin, Hirschauer, 
Lardemelle, Sibille, Levi, Leblois, Heyman, 
Blondin, Andlauer, Schwartz, de Metz, and 
Poudraguin, one hundred and forty-five other 
superior officers, and thousands of captains and 
heutenants; (2) army orders show that the au- 
thorities dare not employ the regiments from Al- 
sace-Lorraine in the Germany Army against 
France and that they hold them under strict 
surveillance everywhere ; (3) tens of thousands of 
deserters are posted, and measures taken for the 
confiscation of their property in the German Em- 
pire ; ( 4 ) the courts martial and the civil tribunals 
of the Reichsland, although they work under 
pressure, are at this writing — January, 1918 — 
several months behind in trying the cases of 



World Justice for France 67, 

civilians accused of high treason and showing 
open sympathy with the enemy. 

We pass to the second question. Do the lost 
provinces want to be reincorporated in France? 
An unqualified affirmative answer, supported by 
proofs, is impossible to give. We might argue 
that since most of the evidence I have cited to 
prove the hostility of Alsatians and Lorrainers 
to Germany implies affection for France, the pre- 
sumption is strong in favor of the desire of the 
large majority to return to the old allegiance. 
But we must make an honest effort to take into 
account the law that seems to be almost univer- 
sal in the working out of nationalist movements 
in border provinces. Small nations have a habit 
of playing off one big neighbor against another. 
Frequently the power that covets a province be- 
yond its confines is encouraged by the growth 
of an irredentism that gives birth to false hopes. 
•The irredentism is found to have been almost 
wholly on the side of the mother-land. For the 
border people too often receive favorably over- 



68 France and Ourselves 

tures from outside, and nourish at home a senti- 
ment of affection for a neighboring power, only 
as the means of wringing concessions and secur- 
ing an amelioration of their lot, politically and 
economically, from the Government to which they 
are subject. There is no real desire to change al- 
legiance. If it came to the point of decision, 
might not the economic and social advantages 
of continuing to be a part of the state to which 
the province actually belonged be considered 
more precious than a better political status 
through union with another state? 

We cannot ignore this point. The Germans 
have raised it, and their polemicists declare that 
the great bulk of the people of Alsace-Lorraine, 
who have used the old sentiment for France to 
secure autonomy and the banishment of Prus- 
sian functionaries, in the bottom of their hearts, 
prefer to remain in the German Confederation. 
For, like the Poles of Posen, they would not 
want to give up what they have enjoyed and have 
become accustomed to under German rule : a well 
organized, smoothly running, efficient adminis- 



World Justice for France 69 

tration; enlightened social legislation for the 
working-classes; participation of the church in 
secular education; good pay and good pensions 
for functionaries and school-teachers; and, above 
all, economic prosperity through union with the 
greatest industrial state in the world. 

Unfortunately for Germany, however, Alsa- 
tians and Lorrainers, like Poles and Danes, have 
not been allowed to enjoy the benefits of belong- 
ing to the German Confederation under the same 
conditions as the German states. Posnania and 
Schleswig were incorporated into Prussia, and 
lost their identity. Constituted as a Reichsland, 
Alsace-Lorraine has always remained a Reichs- 
land. From 1871 until the present time — and 
never more than since the beginning of this war 
— the people of the lost provinces have been 
made to feel that they are a conquered race. 
There was no serious attempt to assimilate or 
reconcile them. They were not left to themselves 
with the dignity and privileges of membership in 
the German Confederation. Their governors, 
their functionaries, their school-masters, their 



70 France and Ourselves 

railway and municipal officials, have always been 
foreigners enforced upon them by Berlin. The 
Germans chose the role of conquerors and ex- 
ploiters. Perhaps they could play no other role. 
Perhaps they did not want to play another role. 
The consequences have been disastrous for 
Germany, favorable for France. Different in 
race, antipathetic in culture, always mindful of 
the fact that they were made German subjects 
against their consent, the people of Alsace-Lor- 
raine, even if they have misgivings in the purely 
material sense about returning to France, as 
France has evolved since 1870, certainly prefer 
France unknown to Germany known. In 1872, 
when the last days of choice between exile and 
German allegiance drew to a close, thousands of 
Alsatians who had hesitated for a year, rich and 
poor alike, emigrated to France. When asked 
why they were leaving for France without knowl- 
edge of where they were going or what they were 
going to do, simple peasants responded, "We 
shall not die Prussians." The spirit of 1918 is 
that of 1872. 



World Jtistice for France 71 

If the French and the Alsatian leaders who 
are advocating the return of Alsace and Lor- 
raine to France without conditions are sure of 
the sentiments of the people of the lost provinces, 
why not a plebiscite? Would not that be the 
simplest and the easiest and the surest way of 
finding out the real sentiments of the people of 
Alsace and Lorraine, and at the same time of 
maintaining in the peace conference the prin- 
ciple of deciding the political status of debat- 
able territories on the basis of "the consent of 
the governed"? 

The plebiscite idea has been mooted by ad- 
vanced thinkers and by socialists, and was 
adopted officially by the Russian revolutionists. 
But an ante- factum plebiscite, nowhere easy to 
arrange, is not at all feasible in Alsace-Lorraine. 
The arguments in its favor are wholly theoretical. 
The arguments against it are practical and, to 
those who know local conditions or take the 
trouble to study them, convincing. History has 
demonstrated that an occupying army can carry 
a plebiscite if it will. Even were both armies 



72 France and Ourselves 

withdrawn, and the plebiscite conducted under 
neutral or indigenous auspices, Germany's fa- 
cilities for espionage, perfected as they are in 
the Reichsland, would remain. With the future 
uncertain, fear of reprisals would prevent a free 
vote. Would it be fair to deprive exiles, driven 
from their native land by the consequences of 
the Peace of Frankfort, of their votes, and allow 
immigres, nine tenths of them German function- 
aries or children of functionaries, to have a part 
in deciding the destiny of a land of which they 
are not natives and to which they are attached 
by no traditional or cultural bonds? 

The proposition of a buffer state is inadmis- 
sible. Not only would it mean the economic ruin 
of the country between the Vosges and the Rhine, 
but it would also be planting the seed for a fu- 
ture war. Alsace-Lorraine could not Hve alone. 
No greater misfortune could come to the inhabi- 
tants of this border-land, to Germany and 
France, to the whole world, than the neuti*aliza- 
tion of the rich provinces. They would remain 
a bone of contention as they have in the past. 



World Justice for France 73 

Only if Alsace-Lorraine is given back to 
France will the balance of power be restored in 
Europe. Only this solution of the problem will 
assure Alsatians and Lorrainers the opportunity 
to speak for themselves — an opportimity they 
have lacked since 1870. When they become 
again an integral part of France, the election of 
deputies and senators to the French parliament 
will take place. It will be a genuine plebiscite. 
France does not fear this plebiscite. Otherwise, 
it would be folly for her to make the return of 
Alsace-Lorraine a war aim. 

Since August, 1917, in the fourth year of 
French reoccupation, I have had the privilege 
of visiting the reconquered portions of Alsace 
twice. I have wandered at will from town to 
town, and have seen, in the light of the tragic and 
uncertain present, manifold evidences of loyalty 
and affection and devotion to France. In 
schools, in factories, and in mairies, I have ob- 
served the results of French administration. Al- 
most all of the French authorities are Alsatian by 
birth and tradition. They are fully alive to the 



74 France and Ourselves 

problems they have to face. They realize that 
the reassimilation of the lost provinces in the 
French republic will necessitate changes in the 
political organism of France, changes in law and 
the spirit of administering law, changes that are 
economic and social fully as much as political. 
But France is willing to accept the task before 
her. She is eager to receive again into her 'bosom 
the provinces over the loss of which she has suf- 
fered. 

Answering a question in the House of Com- 
mons, Mr. Balfour said recently that since Aug- 
ust 4, 1914, the return of Alsace and Lorraine 
to France has been one of Great Britain's war 
aims. Since April 4, 1917, has it not been also 
one of our war aims? Deep down in the heart 
of every American is a passionate love for France, 
a firm determination to see that the wrongs of 
France at the hands of Germany are righted. 
France cannot be herself again without the re- 
turn of Alsace and Lorraine. At this critical 
moment when the burden of France is immeasur- 
ably greater than ours it is our duty to give her 



World Justice for France 75 

renewed inspiration for the struggle. It will 
come only from an official declaration of the 
American Government that we are fighting for 
the return of the lost provinces to the mother 
country. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INDUSTRIAL EFFORT OF FRANCE DURING 
THE WAR ^ 

ON the last day of August, 1914, the super- 
intendent of a steel-plant said to me: 
"You have heard that the government is prepar- 
ing to go to Bordeaux. Since Charleroi, it is 
not surprising news." 

"Yes," I answered, "the panic seems to be on. 
But you have confidence, have you not, that you 
can hold your people?" 

"Oh, the Parisian working-man does not think 
of flight. He has nowhere to go, and no money 
to go with. Anyivay he has much more sang 
froid than the bourgeois." 

Three weeks later, while we were still rejoic- 
ing over the Battle of the Marne, I met the steel- 

1 February, 1919. 

76 



Industrial Effort of France During War 77 

manufacturer in a restaurant, eating sauerkraut 
and sausage. Beside his plate stood a big mug of 
beer. It was just as if there were no German 
invasion. 

"Back from Bordeaux?" I asked, jokingly, for 
that was the teasing question of the moment. To 
my astonishment, he answered affirmatively. 

"I must explain," he added, "though you know 
I am not the froussard type. But the explana- 
tion is confidential. You must say nothing about 
it until after the war. I was summoned to 
Bordeaux by the Government with other metal- 
lurgists and members of the Comite des Forges. 
What we were told down there in Bordeaux 
would have been a real tragedy if we had taken 
it as a tragedy. Thank God, there was n't a 
man of us who lost his nerve. We French are a 
happy-go-lucky people, perhaps, but we do know 
how to rise to emergencies." 

When the waiter had taken the order, the steel 
man told me about the munitions situation in 
France. The war is over. Now — for the glory 
of French industry — I can write about what I 



78 France and Ourselves 

learned that night, and what I have heard and 
seen since. 

A few weeks of fighting had upset the theories 
and calculations of strategists, publicists, econo- 
mists, military critics, and statesmen. It had 
been an axiom that the next European war would 
be very short. The decisive battles would take 
place within the month after war was declared, 
and the decisive factors would be speed of mo- 
bilization and ability to use to the greatest effect 
the means of destruction amassed beforehand. 
Consequently, military authorities had concen- 
trated their attention upon mobilization and 
transportation. France and Germany had both 
worked out their plans for "the next war" with 
the idea of giving quickly the decisive blow or 
stopping once for all the enemy's offensive. 
Germany's preparations were more thorough 
than those of France, and on a larger scale. 
But no more than the French did the Germans 
conceive the possibility of continuous fighting, 
with artillery preparation and support, extend- 
ing over hundreds of kilometers and lasting 



Industrial Effort of France During War 79 

through weeks. The war had not been on a 
month before it was reaHzed — on both sides, luck- 
ily! — that the amount of artillery and the sup- 
ply of ammunition were woefully inadequate to 
the new necessities of offensive and defensive 
fighting. Ammunition was being used ten times 
as fast as was anticipated. 

When Monsieur Millerand, the Minister of 
War, summoned to Bordeaux the leading steel 
and iron men of France, it was to tell them that 
the fate of the country was in their hands. The 
75-cm. field-artillery cannon was proving itself, 
as had been foreseen by the Balkan Wars, the 
weapon par eoocellence of armies in the field. 
But the consumption of shells was far beyond 
what had been provided for. If France was go- 
ing to make full use of this one source of superi- 
ority over the Germans, a supply of shells would 
have to be furnished without delay a thousand 
per cent, in excess of the capacity of the state 
arsenals. Unless private firms could produce 
these shells the cause of France was hopeless. 

The estimates given by Monsieur Millerand 



80 France and Ourselves 

to the steel men staggered them. State arsenals 
were producing twelve thousand shells a day. 
Before the Germans resumed their offensive, the 
armies must have at least one hundred thousand 
75-cm. shells a day. And along with this mam- 
moth increase in shell production, the War De- 
partment would look to French factories for 
cannon, auto-trucks, shells of larger caliber, ex- 
plosives on a scale never dreamed of, and a be- 
wildering amount and variety of railway mate- 
rial. Steps were being taken, of course, to im- 
port, especially from the United States. But 
in the final analysis France would have to rely 
upon her own industrial resources. 

The little group to whom Monsieur Millerand 
outlined his demand could have given many rea- 
sons to prove the impossibility of executing it. 
General Joifre's forced retreat abandoned to the 
enemy the industrial regions of the north and 
east, which contained the greater part of France's 
plants for the production of steel, and most of 
her iron and coal. In the invaded regions were 
70 per cent, of France's coal and 80 per cent, of 



Industrial Effort of France During War 81 

her iron ore. The north and east had contributed 
four fifths of France's coke and four fifths of 
her cast-iron and steel. Not only had these re- 
sources been lost to France. They had been 
added to the enemy's producing capacity. Be- 
fore the war, France imported annually twenty 
million tons of coal and three million tons of coke. 
Most of the coke came from Germany, and was 
destined to the steel-plants of central France 
and Normandy. Even could foreign supplies of 
coal and iron be drawn upon, transportation was 
lacking. 

The problem of labor was not less formidable 
than that of raw materials. Since the possibility 
of a long war had not entered into France's cal- 
culations, the mobilization of industry was not 
foreseen. The military arsenals were called 
upon to send an important part of their person- 
nel to the front. Exemption was not granted 
to superintendents, engineers, and working-men 
of private establisliments. Every plant repre- 
sented at the Bordeaux conference was crippled 
by the mobilization of its staff and hands, as well 



82 France and Ourselves 

as paralyzed by the commandeering of transpor- 
tation facilities for military purposes. To call 
back at that critical moment the men who had 
gone to the front was a delicate matter. Na- 
tional sentiment was against it, and could not 
be enlightened as to the necessity of such a meas- 
ure without revealing France's weakness to the 
enemy. It was the nation's instinct that the 
armies were all too small to stem the German 
onslaught. Feeling was bitter against embus- 
ques. 

There were also technical difficulties. Before 
the war, the French Government manufactured 
its artillery and shells. Private industry was 
called upon only for raw materials. Steel was 
delivered in raw state according to serial specifi- 
cations, and had to pass the most rigid inspection. 
The Government made cannon at Bourges and 
Puteaux; munitions at Lyons, Tarbes, and 
Rheims; rifles at St.-Etienne, Chatellerault, and 
Tulle. For accessories, each corps d'armee had 
its arsenal. The specifications for the 75-cm. 
shell demanded manufacture by hydraulic 



Industrial Effort of Fraiice During War 83 

presses. As the shell was a bottle with thin sides, 
the steel had to be highly tempered. Then there 
were the copper cases, and the fuses, with seven- 
teen parts to think about. The manufacturers 
at Bordeaux knew they could not improvise hy- 
draulic machines and produce an unlimited quan- 
tity of high-tension steel. 

Doctor Schroeder assured the German Iron- 
masters' Association on January 31, 1915, that 
the French metallurgical industry was paralyzed 
by the invasion of the northern and eastern indus- 
trial regions to the point of hopelessly compromis- 
ing the national defense. But the Herr Doktor 
knew nothing of the Bordeaux meeting, and of 
how Monsieur Millerand's appeal was being an- 
swered at the very moment he announced com- 
placently the ruin of French competitors. One 
of the most damning indictments of contempo- 
rary Germany is to be found in just such speeches 
as this, which reveal a lack of moral sense in the 
industrial leaders of the German people. But 
we owe much to the tendency of these Herren 
Doktoren to believe that the fatherland has a 



84 France and Ourselves 

monopoly of organizing ability and scientific 
knowledge, of power to mobilize and utilize ma- 
terial forces. Victims of their own conceit, the 
Germans discounted the possibility of France 
mustering an army in the rear, with captains of 
industry in command, to put into the hands of 
the army at the front the means of saving the 
world from Deutschland iiber alles. On our 
side, when we come to write the history of the 
war, let us not look for the effort and the genius, 
which brought the victory, in generals and com- 
batant troops alone. 

During the winter of 1914-15, when the arm- 
ies were digging themselves in from the North 
Sea to Switzerland, the steel and iron manufac- 
turers started to make up for the formidable 
diminution in raw-steel production caused by the 
loss of the northern and eastern regions. Long- 
neglected coal and iron deposits were utilized. 
Mines in uninvaded departments, from the Pyr- 
enees to the Pas-de-Calais, were developed to 
the limit of production. Coke-ovens were set 
up. A new system of transportation was organ- 



Industrial Effort of France During War 85 

ized, and the rolling-stock found somewhere. 
Plants that had never competed with the north 
in raw steel were equipped with blast-fur- 
naces and converters. Labor-recruiting agents 
scoured Italy, Spain, and North Africa. New 
methods and new machinery were devised so that 
women could be used as manual laborers. No 
foundry or machine-shop was too small to be 
overlooked in the inventory of shell-producing 
possibilities. Factories got their steel and expert 
instructors. In quantities ranging from ten to 
a thousand per day, 75-cm. shells were turned 
out. In April, 1915, the French armies were 
receiving nearly a million shells a week for the 
precious soixante-quinze. 

This was only the beginning. The soixante- 
quinze cannon had to be replaced and increased 
in number. Trench warfare called for heavier 
cannon and shells. Larger shells cannot be 
manufactured, like the 75-cm,, from cut-steel 
bars turned and drilled on lathes. They must 
be forged. This required new installation of 
machinery in factories, and an enormous increase 



86 "France and Ourselves 

in consumption of raw material. Since tempered 
steel in sufficient quantity could not be furnished, 
the big shells had to be cast in foundries. 

The ingenious makeshifts applied to shell pro- 
duction, however, did not work when it was a 
question of cannon. Fortunately for France, the 
navy had not followed the example of the army 
in manufacturing its own equipment. Fortu- 
nately, too, the old law which forbade French 
industry to accept foreign orders and to export 
war material was repealed in 1885. For thirty 
years the big establishments of central France — ■ 
Le Creusot, Montlu9on, St.-Chamond, St.-Eti- 
enne, and Firminy — had been working for the 
French navy, and for the armies and navies of a 
dozen foreign countries. They were equipped 
with open-hearth furnaces, and produced fine 
steel in ingots. In competition with Vickers and 
Krupp, their export business had demanded the 
most delicate and powerful steel products. The 
resources and capacity of these plants, constantly 
increased during the war under the stimulus of 
danger, saved France and her allies from defeat. 



Industrial Effort of France During War 87 

By the time we Americans made up our minds 
to enter the war, French industry was in a posi- 
tion to give us, also, the artillery without which 
our armies would have cut a sorry figure at the 
front. 

Throughout the war France received less than 
10 per cent, of her artillery and shells from 
abroad. The exact figures will not be available 
for a long time yet, but in saying "less than 10 
per cent." I am certainly on the safe side.^ This 
is an illustration of how French metallurgical in- 
dustry responded to Monsieur Millerand's ap- 
peal at Bordeaux. It should correct the curious 
impression of many of my compatriots that 
France's needs were supplied by the United 
States. One remembers with amusement the 
campaign of pro-Germans and pacifists in the un- 
happy days of our neutrality *'to stop the war in 

1 The last tables, published in February, 1919, show percentage 
of increases only as far as the beginning of October, 1916. These 
are sufficiently eloquent to indicate France's effort in the manu- 
facture of cannon and ammunition. Taking 100 as a basis on 
August 1, 1914, the Ministry of Armament shows the following 
stupendous results for the first two years after the meeting at 
Bordeaux: machine-guns, 16,430; rifles, 29,570; explosives, 3,750; 
75-cm. shells, 3,940; other shells of larger caliber, 8,900; 75-cin. 
cannon, 3,220; heavy cannon, 2,300. 



88 France and Ourselves 

Europe" by an embargo on the export of can- 
non and ammunition. Up to the day the armis- 
tice was signed, France's industrial attitude was 
that of the little boy who was told by the old 
gentleman that he could not capture a ground- 
hog by digging in his hole. "Can't catch him? 
Got to catch him! The family's out of meat," 
answered the little boy. 

In every corner of France, superintendents and 
engineers and foremen and laborers knew that 
France was out of meat. But one did not need 
to go from Paris to find concrete examples of 
industrial effort. On the banks of the Seine, 
under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, were two 
men who seemed to possess Aladdin's lamp. 

At Billancourt, twenty years ago, Louis Re- 
nault passed his play hours experimenting with 
gas-engines in his mother's carriage-house. The 
old suburban home and the carriage-house are 
still there. Around them have been built acres 
of shops to keep pace with the development of 
Renault's gas-engine. At the outbreak of the 
war the Renault plant was sending automobiles 



Industrial Effort of France During War 89 

all over the world. Louis Renault did not go to 
the Ministry of War with the proposition of 
supplying his product. He simply asked what 
was the need of the moment. He undertook to 
fill that need. Seventy-five-centimeter shells, 
of course, came first. There was no hesitation 
about a radical transformation of his plant for 
this purpose. When there were enough shells, 
aeroplane motors were in demand. Renault 
made them. He developed his own models. 

After the surprise at Cambrai, in the autumn 
of 1917, France saw the possibility of the use of 
small armored tanks. In June, 1918, when the 
Germans were threatening Paris for the second 
time, I went out to the Renault factory to speak 
to the hands. Monsieur Renault was not a bit 
depressed, and he showed me why. One of his 
tanks was ready. He ordered it out into the 
street. It slid down the embankment of the 
quay to the Seine, climbed up again, went 
through a hedge, rode over a big tree, and 
knocked down the walls of a building that was 
being demolished. Then, turning a half-somer- 



90 France and Ourselves 

sault to shake off bricks and plaster, the tank 
crawled back to the factory. 

"I am making as many of these as I can get 
the material for," said Monsieur Renault. A 
month later, the Renault tanks entered into ac- 
tion between the Marne and the Vesle. Ask any 
American who took part in those glorious July 
days, and he will tell you what happened. 

Andre Citroen was one of the engineers with 
special training released from service at the front 
when public opinion finally realized that the in- 
dustrial effort of the rear must have technically 
trained men in the prime of life. Citroen dis- 
hked to leave his artillery regiment, but he knew 
the gravity of the situation and had one idea 
in his head — shells, shells, and more shells. 
Shells without limit alone could bring the victory. 
Unlike Renault, Citroen had no established busi- 
ness with a large plant and thousands of hands. 
In the summer of 1915, when the Ministry of 
Armament told him to go ahead and make shells, 
he possessed only a plot of land on the right 
bank of the Seine beyond the Pont de Crenelle. 



Industrial Effort of France During War 91 

Business enterprises had not prospered along the 
Quai de Javel. The land was used for growing 
cabbages and cauliflower. But the quarter was 
a populous one, and Citroen was looking for 
labor. He started with one building and a hun- 
dred 75-cm. shells a day. Three years later his 
plant covered acres. He was turning out in 
Paris over ten thousand shells a day, and direct- 
ing another large plant, almost as important as 
the Paris one, at Roanne. 

In 1918, nearly five thousand people were 
working on the cabbage-patch of 1915. When 
I spoke at the Citroen factory at the time of 
the last German thrust toward Paris, I lunched 
in a great hall with the three thousand working- 
men and working-women of the day shift. We 
were served by white-garbed girls who brought 
piping-hot food to the tables in motor-driven 
wagonettes. Monsieur Citroen has cooperative 
stores for his hands, and a model creche where 
hundreds of babies are cared for from Monday 
morning until Saturday night. 

"All this created out of nothing, in the midst 



92 France and Ourselves 

of the war, with the Germans fifty miles away! 
How did you do it?" I exclaimed. 

"Had to," answered Monsieur Citroen. 

The metallurgical industry had other burdens 
than those of munitions and cannon imposed 
upon it. Rifles were never before manufactured 
except in arsenals of the state. They were now 
called for by the million from private industry. 
Bayonets and trench daggers required tempered 
steel. The thousandfold increase in aviation and 
in automobile transport was possible only if steel 
and iron parts were delivered promptly. Ma- 
chinery for shops was imported, but most of it 
had to be made in France. The armies could 
never get enough barbed wire, picks, shovels, 
crowbars. As trench warfare developed, light 
railways for feeding ammunition to the batter- 
ies all along the front were needed. Steel-plants 
had to furnish the rails. Later, heavy artillery 
could not be handled without wide-gage railways 
and special trucks. Then came the idea of ar- 
mored trains and automobiles. At the very time 
the steel-plants were working to the limit to turn 



Industrial Effort of France During War 93 

out heavy artillery, the General Staff realized 
that the defensive, much less the offensive, could 
not be successful without machine-guns and 
armored machine-gun emplacements. Even 
with labor assured and factories expanding and 
machines installed to keep pace with the insatiable 
demands, steel and iron men were not free from 
the constant fear of running out of raw material 
and coal. Iron ore, pig-iron, and steel — the 
figures mounted from month to month like the 
figures of the budget of the Ministry of Finance. 
But steel could not be multiplied, like money, by 
paper and loans. 

France imported pig-iron and brought ore 
from the Pyrenees. Up to the end of 1916 much 
coal came from England. The intensification 
of submarine warfare necessitated the recall from 
their regiments of all the miners. This did not 
remove the miners from danger. They were put 
to a greater test than when fighting. Right up 
to the front lines in Flanders and the Artois, the 
precious coal-mines were exploited. During 
1917 France succeeded in mining thirty million 



94s France and Ourselves 

tons of coal — three fourths of her ante-bellum 
output ! When imports in pig-iron fell off, blast- 
furnaces in the Gironde, the Loire Inferieure and 
Normandy, enabled France to increase her pro- 
duction 210 per cent, between July, 1915, and 
July, 1917. Before the war there was no fire- 
brick industry in France. All the supply came 
from Eubcea in Greece. This was cut off en- 
tirely. To keep blast and open-hearth furnaces, 
coke-ovens and converters lined, a new industry 
was created. 

Next in importance to the metallurgical ef- 
fort of France, and not less difficult to succeed in, 
was the chemical effort. This was a field in 
which Germany had excelled in time of peace. 
Her doctors of philosophy, engaged wholesale 
by huge industrial enterprises, gave their em- 
ployers the benefit of tireless and systematic ex- 
perimental laboratory work. Since the war we 
have heard much of aniline dyes. The per- 
sonal experience of each of us has taught the les- 
son of our dependence upon Germany. Aniline 
dyes were only one field of superiority. Ger- 



Industrial Effort of France During War 95 

man chemical products of every kind competed 
successfully with French products in French 
markets. The Ministry of War, in spite of the 
loss of the iron and coal of the north and east, 
had something to fall back upon in metallurgy. 
In chemistry, there was practically nothing to 
supplement government provisions for manu- 
facturing explosives. It was impossible to di- 
vert to the production of explosives the plants 
that were struggling to meet a tenfold increase 
of demand for drugs. Other plants were built. 
And when the Germans started to use asphyxiat- 
ing gases, an unexplored field of chemical effort 
was entered upon on a large scale. Observation 
balloons alone were overtaxing the existing gas- 
producing capacity of the nation. 

But one never finds the French at their wits' 
end. By a superhuman effort, raw materials 
were found. Of coal, however, adequate sup- 
plies could not be diverted to the chemical fac- 
tories. The chemical manufacturers concen- 
trated their plants in the departments near the 
Alps and Pyrenees, and used electricity gener- 



96 France and Ourselves 

ated by water-power. For decades economists 
and scientists urged the harnessing of mountain 
watercourses fed by the perennial mountain snow. 
It required the pressure of the German invasion 
to secure widespread use of what the French call 
houille blanche. 

I am often asked what scene of war made the 
deepest impression upon me during the ten years 
I have been following armies. I know that I 
am expected to speak of a battle, a massacre, 
an air raid, refugees, or the havoc of destruction. 
For there is surprise when I answer, "An endless 
chain of auto-trucks passing by night along the 
Verdun-Bar-le-Duc road in March, 1916." The 
Germans had concentrated their artillery and 
best troops for the final battle of the war. The 
railway behind the French was destroyed. In 
spite of the heroism of the defenders of the forts 
of Verdun, they could not have held back the 
Germans without food and ammunition. Those 
auto-trucks saved France from the fate that has 
finally been meted out to the aggressor. The 
ammunition they carried enabled the French to 



Industrial Effort of France During War 97 

hurl back shell for shell. As I watched them 
pass toward the thunder and lightning of the 
valley of the Meuse, I reahzed that they formed 
the link between the army of the front and the 
army of the rear. France was resisting victori- 
ously because her entire population was work- 
ing night and day. The Herren Doktoren had 
made a false calculation. 

A few figures, to illustrate the growth of 
France's army in the rear, show how wrongly 
Germany reckoned when she believed that 
through the violation of Belgian neutrality she 
was going to strike a mortal blow at France's 
industrial life: 

Number of Workers: 

July Aug. Jan. 

IdlJi, 19H 1918 

Food products 93,775 50,469 80,557 

Chemical products 78,892 35,470 93,667 

Rubber and paper 55,298 17,606 42,506 

Textile industries 309,287 104,698 255,227 

Clothing 137,764 44,332 109,743 

Leather and skins 70,212 26,864 59,375 

Wood 84,790 19,315 72,581 

Metallurgy 371,300 122,356 642,539 



98 France and Ourselves 

The second column gives the diminution 
through mobiHzation. In September, 1914, the 
figures for textiles and metallurgy were cut in 
half — if not more — by the invasion of northern 
and eastern France. The third column was es- 
tablished before the last German offensive. In 
comparing it with the other two we must remem- 
ber that only workers in metallurgy and chem- 
ical products had been returned to their trades, 
and that the figures indicate France at work in 
the fourth year of the war and without her rich- 
est industrial provinces. 

The textile, leather, and rubber industries sup- 
plied the armies with clothing, shoes, and tires. 
In every department of France, tailors and cob- 
blers, often in little shops, were busy on piece 
work for the Government. I have lectured in 
towns of from fifty to eighty thousand inhabi- 
tants, all of whose industries were engaged ex- 
clusively in army work. The making of auto- 
mobiles and aeroplanes depended as much upon 
workers in wood as upon workers in metal. 
Weaving-mills, also, contributed to the intensive 



Industrial Effort of France During War 99 

production of aeroplanes. In July, 1917, after 
three years of war, fifteen thousand factories were 
classed as urines de guerre. They employed one 
million, seven hundred thousand hands, of whom 
only six hundred thousand were mobihzed. 
Four hundred thousand of the civilian hands were 
women. In factories other than usines de guerre, 
nearly half a million workers were employed. 

The president of a chamber of commerce told 
me shortly before the armistice that French in- 
dustry, without counting the mobilized soldiers 
in the usines de guerre, was employing more 
labor than at the outbreak of the war. "When 
you consider that in making this statement I am 
comparing the figures of all of France, 'before the 
war' with those of France, deprived of her rich- 
est industrial regions, in the autumn of 1918, you 
will realize the miracle we have performed and 
its significance for the future." 

Writing about the industrial effort of France 
during the war has not for its purpose simply to 
glorify the army of the rear and emphasize a 
chapter of war history that has escaped notice. 



100 France and Ourselves 

What French manufacturers have done for na- 
tional defense has wrought a profound change 
in the internal and international situation of 
France. Ante-bellum economic conditions will 
not be reestablished with peace. The reconstruc- 
tion of northern France, in industry and agricul- 
ture, is no more of a problem than the utihzation 
of the new equipments for manufacturing called 
into being during the last four years in other 
parts of France. Capacity for production has 
increased several-fold. Industrial centers have 
a labor supply that has kept pace with this in- 
creased capacity. Now that the war work is fin- 
ished, what will these plants produce? Where 
will they sell their products? Without the aid of 
a government vitally interested in supplying 
them, will the flow of raw materials be uninter- 
rupted? When the factories of the North get 
back to work and the products of Alsace-Lor- 
raine pour into France, there is danger of over- 
production at home and keen competition for 
exporting facilities. France lacks shipping — 
which means high overseas freights — and fears 



Industrial Effort of France During War 101 

meeting the prices of other nations in the world 
markets. When the armies are demobihzed, 
work must be found for two million artisans and 
two million unskilled laborers. 

French manufacturers and labor leaders do 
not view the problems of peace and reconstruction 
from the angle of politicians and journalists. 
The speeches of our peacemakers and the edi- 
torials of newspapers fill with uneasiness those 
who have actually to confront questions of re- 
construction. Although the theories of manu- 
facturers and labor leaders are radically differ- 
ent, they agi-ee in being less interested in preserv- 
ing France's amour propre than in assuring 
France's hien-etre. One cannot live on pride. 
Where patriotism is not tempered by common 
sense, it is not patriotism at all, but blind and 
dangerous sentimentality. As for the idea- 
logues, did not Christ tell His disciples to begin 
spreading the gospel at Jerusalem? A French- 
man, whom we would call in America a captain of 
industry, said to me recently: "Most of the 
propositions aired in the press fly in the face of. 



102 France and Ourselves 

economic laws. Among Allied statesmen I have 
found only one who has had the com^age to tell 
people the truth. Pasted over my desk there 
you see the speech delivered by Sir Eric Geddes 
at Cambridge on November 28th." I looked at 
the newspaper clipping. One sentence, under- 
lined with blue pencil, read, "The indemnity ques- 
tion must not be allowed to become a fetish to 
lead to the ruin of our working classes." 

The war lasted too long in Europe for polit- 
ical aspects to dominate at the moment of final 
settlement. By agreements between statesmen 
or by the application of force, it is possible to 
smooth over or cause to disappear political diffi- 
culties. The economic situation politicians do 
not control. The entire population of belliger- 
ent countries was called upon to make an indus- 
trial effort which changed internal social and 
economic conditions more than armies changed 
international political conditions. In making 
peace, governments have to take into considera- 
tion factors which never before appeared in a 
diplomatic settlement. 



Industrial Effort of France During War 103 

Just after the opening of the Peace Confer- 
ence, a French Cabinet Minister spoke at a man- 
ufacturers' banquet. He felt that he had un- 
usually restless and impatient listeners. He 
asked the reason. The frank question brought 
forth a frank response. "Mr. Minister," said 
the toastmaster, "we may be divided about the 
League of Nations, but we all want a peace that 
will put Germany down and keep her down. In 
themselves, your propositions do not displease us. 
But it is evident that you do not realize the neces- 
sity of putting the economic test to each of them. 
You have not satisfied us that in establishing 
its program, the members of the Government 
have asked themselves how, simply and collect- 
ively, the measures are going to affect the eco- 
nomic life of France. You did not need to em- 
phasize to an audience of Frenchmen the danger 
of a renewal of German aggression. But you 
did need to assure an audience of producers of 
goods and hirers of labor that the Government, 
in peace negotiations, is equally ahve to the twin 
dangers of over-production and unemployment. 



104 France and Ourselves 

In order to win the war, you stimulated us to a 
miraculous industrial effort. In order to win 
the peace, do not ignore the revolutionized indus- 
trial situation of France. The producing capac- 
ity of our factories is greatly increased. The 
field of labor-recruiting is widely extended." 

Since the armistice American business men 
have flocked to France. Eager to help in the 
economic rehabilitation of the country, they want 
to provide France with building materials, agri- 
cultural machinery, automobiles, locomotives, 
rolling-stock, and steel rails. They are amazed 
at the difficulties put in their path, especially since 
they thought that the French Goverment would 
encourage importation. They become angry 
and declare that the French are bhnd to their 
own interests. The inertia of the Government 
and the Government's fear of lowering the value 
of the franc abroad are blamed for the strict bar- 
riers maintained against importations. The 
president of the American Chamber of Com- 
merce in Paris has issued a statement criticizing 



Industrial Effort of France During War 105 

the French importation regulations, which he 
attributes to exchange considerations. 

The Government's pohcy, however, has a 
deeper and more significant cause which has es- 
caped the Americans who are anxious to do busi- 
ness with France. France makes no objection 
to the importation of raw materials. Machinery 
that she cannot make herself she is as eager to 
get as during the war. But all manufactured 
articles that can be made by French facto- 
ries are practically prohibited entry. Nor has 
France shown great willingess to purchase the 
equipment of the American Expeditionary 
Force. Is it a mistake in policy to want to keep 
for France the labor cost and the manufacturing 
and selling profit of merchandise for French con- 
sumption ? The real reason why Americans and 
British are finding business difficult in France is 
the industrial effort of France during the war. 

French captains of industry were not short- 
sighted during the years of formidable produc- 
tion of war material. In extending their plants 



106 France and Ourselves 

they kept constantly in mind the present crisis. 
Schneider & Co., for instance, when they were 
putting up acres of new shops to turn out can- 
non at Le Creusot and Honfleur, had ab*eady 
decided to become locomotive-manufacturers 
after the war. The new buildings were con- 
structed accordingly. While Andre Citroen 
was developing from hundreds to thousands his 
daily output of 75 -cm. shells, he and his staff did 
not forget that shells would be a drug on the 
market after the collapse of Germany. When 
the armistice was signed, they put into effect the 
plans they had conceived while they were making 
shells. The Citroen plants were transformed in 
a few weeks, and on January 1, 1919, Monsieur 
Citroen offered to the French public three types 
of low-priced automobiles. In vain the Ford 
Motor Company protested by display advertise- 
ments against the refusal of the French Govern- 
ment to allow the French market to be flooded 
with Ford cars. Citroen cannot compete with 
Ford in cost of production. But even if the 
French market has to pay a little more and wait 



Industrial Effort of France During War 107 

a little longer for deliveries, the manufacturers 
and war workers who saved France are not going 
to be without a means of earning a livelihood. 

The war has not changed the old system of 
international trade relations. We are far from 
the era of free trade between nations and the 
open door in colonies. Unless reaction goes so 
far as to cause a revolution, and if economic con- 
ditions in other countries are like those in France, 
we may expect the third decade of the twentieth 
century to accentuate the tendency to high pro- 
tective tariffs and to governmental backing of 
large enterprises in marketing goods in second- 
ary states, protectorates, and colonies. The in- 
dustrial effort of France during the war made 
victory possible — but at the price of a conmier- 
cial war after peace is signed. And if, with 
peace, the world secures a diminution of arma- 
ments, international commercial rivalrj'^ will be 
all the more intense. 

While manufacturers are reminding the Gov- 
ernment of its increased responsibility toward 
industry, which involves protection in home 



108 France and Ourselves 

markets and aid in capturing foreign markets, 
the laboring classes warn the Government of its 
increased responsibility toward them, which in- 
volves radical changes in the conditions and com- 
pensation of employment. Employers of labor, 
they say, have been well rewarded for their ef- 
fort in the national defense. Here are two ex- 
amples, taken at random, of profits to share- 
holders : 

ClE. COMMENTRY-FOURCHAMBAULT ET DeCAZEVILLE 

Francs 

1914 3,337,750 

1915 7,229,335 

1916 10,635,346 

1917 20,266,848 

SOCIETE DES AcIERIES DU SaUT-DXJ-TaRN 

Francs 

1914 1,029,876 

1915 1,115,385 

1916 6,795,316 

1917 15,873,970 

Wages increased, but in most cases no more than 
the cost of living. 

So the workers are questioning to-day, with 



Industrial Effort of France During War 109 

more boldness and insistence than at any time 
in the history of French industry, the justice of 
the present system of the distribution of wealth. 
They declare that increased taxation to pay for 
the war must be only at the expense of capital. 
On the other hand, they demand shorter hours 
of work and higher pay. If capitahsts do not 
care to continue to manage and develop enter- 
prises under new conditions, they advocate the 
taking over of industries by the state. A So- 
cialist newspaper expresses the feeling common 
in France, now that the soldiers are being de- 
mobilized, in these words: "While poilus were 
receiving shells, stock-holders were receiving divi- 
dends." 

All this does not prevent one who has lived in 
close touch with French industry during the war 
from being optimistic about the future. The 
French boil over easily. It is in the Gallic tem- 
perament to be extravagant in demands and to 
press claims with violent words. But it is also in 
the Gallic temperament to cool down quickly 
and to let reason win the day. Unless he has 



110 France and Ourselves 

a long time been removed from the soil, the 
French working-man retains his peasant instinct 
of respect for property and his peasant ambi- 
tion of becoming a small capitalist himself. In 
the country where bureaucracy has been car- 
ried to an extreme and where the enterprises 
controlled by the state are so badly run, the doc- 
trine of state control of industries has Httle 
chance of taking deep root. Its loudest advo- 
cates would be the most dismayed if they saw it 
gaining ground. In spite of surface indications, 
there is a solidarity between employers and work- 
ing-men. They know that their interests are 
bound up together, and serious trouble would 
come only if the captains of industry were to find 
themselves unable to carry on in time of peace 
as they have so admirably carried on in time of 
war. 



CHAPTER V 

HUMAN CURRENTS OF THE WAR ^ 

GOING from Menin to Ypres we were 
nearly half an hour in "no man's land." 
The name will stick. Human beings could not 
Hve there during the war. Human beings will 
not live there for years after the war. Along 
the road on the ridge of the hill a few splintered 
trunks of trees remain. Stumps torn up and 
turned turtle, sticking in the mud, offer to the 
wind tendrils of roots instead of branches. The 
fields, plowed by shells, convulsed by mines, bur- 
rowed in all directions by trenches, are pocked. 
The pocks, often running into one another, are 
pools of water. By the map we knew that vil- 
lages had been scattered here and there in this 
once populous corner of Belgium. Now there 
were not even traces of buildings. In Ypres 

1 March, 1919. 

Ill 



112 France and Ourselves 

some walls were standing, but no house had kept 
its roof. We could not tell where the streets 
had been. 

We passed the French frontier after dark. 
Suddenly the auto stopped. We got out, fear- 
ing engine trouble, and found ourselves in the 
main street of a deserted city. 

"This was Armentieres," said our conducting 
officer. "Before the last German offensive forty 
thousand people lived here." 

Thanks to the moon, we received a ghostly and 
ghastly impression as we wandered through the 
streets. We were alone. The ruins did not 
give up a cat. Owls and lizards had not yet 
come. 

From the Belgian frontier to the Vosges, 
straight across France, we traveled by one road, 
and back by another. In the fighting belt, from 
twenty to sixty miles wide, we went in succes- 
sion through Armentieres, Lens, Douai, Cam- 
brai. Arras, Albert, Bapaume, Peronne, Saint 
Quentin, Ham, Nesle, Montdidier, Lassigny, 
JS^oyon, Soissons, Chateau- Thierry, Rheims — 



Human Currents of the War 113 

why continue the list? Take the map. Look at 
the names of all the towns and cities in the re- 
gions where the armies fought from 1914 to 
1918. Draw upon your imagination for the 
worst that earthquakes and fires could accom- 
plish. And in the portions of northern and 
northeastern France behind the German lines 
picture every mine flooded, every factory looted, 
every farm robbed of live stock and machinery, 
every cross-roads mined, every railway bridge 
blown up. 

The Battle of Liberation put an end to trench 
warfare. Each week more cities and l-^gions 
were freed. Three days after the armistice was 
signed the last of the invaders had recrossed the 
frontiers of France. From those who did not 
know war and the Germans, the bulletins of 
victory elicited the almost universal comment: 
"Now, we can breathe freely again. And is n't 
it fine that the refugees can go home!" The 
war was over. We could wash our hands of re- 
sponsibility for the people of the invaded prov- 
inces. We did not need to have them on our 



114 France and Ourselves 

minds any longer. Let every one get back to the 
easy, happy, care-free hfe of 1914! The Ger- 
mans are on the other side of the Rhine, and we 
all did our bit to put them there. By the terms 
of the treaty of peace we shall tell them to stay 
there. France has lived her tragic days. We 
can forget what we have suffered, and enter into 
the glorious era of the new world. 

Most people with a bit of money and their 
position intact cherish the hope of having the 
inverse of Rip Van Winkle's experience. With 
no personal, social, and financial problems to 
face, or at least unconscious of having any, they 
expect to wipe the past four years off the slate. 
It is n't a new world they want, at all. It is 
the old world — the world of the days before the 
Germans went amuck. They grow impatient — 
and angry — when the conversation is led around 
to social unrest and labor crises. Strikes are the 
result of Bolshevist propaganda, spread in the 
interest of Germany. Socialists and labor lead- 
ers are unrepentant pro-Germans. With so 
much reconstruction work to be done, and Ger- 



Human Currents of the War 115 

man money to put it through, unemployment is 
an absurdity. It shows a lack of will to work on 
the part of the proletariat, combined, perhaps, 
with governmental inefficiency. The refugee 
problem no longer exists. Why do not the refu- 
gees go back to where they came from? 

It is easy enough to say to the milHon refugees 
and to the three hundred thousand soldiers of 
the North who are being released from military 
service: "Go home now. Your country is 
freed. We have driven the Germans out." It 
is easy enough to say to the four million French- 
men who were in the power of the invaders: 
"Get back to your work, and resume your normal 
life. Your country is freed. We have driven 
the Germans out." Whether they are city folk, 
town folk or country folk, the problems for de- 
mobilized soldiers of the invaded regions, for 
refugees, for inhabitants, are the same. To be- 
gin with, there is not enough food. One prefect 
told me that in his department the relief com- 
mission will have to count on distributing food 
for a year and a half longer. Until the machin- 



116 France and Ourselves 

ery is replaced there will be no work in mines 
and factories. The factories, moreover, depend 
upon the mines and upon raw materials. Coal 
and raw materials, like food-stuffs, will be in- 
sufficient until normal transportation conditions 
are reestablished. How can the farmers get 
along without stock, poultry, seed, fertilizers, 
implements, wagons, horses? In the destroyed 
zone there are no homes to go to, no factories to 
work in, no trades to ply, and the task of render- 
ing fertile again the ground over which the arm- 
ies fought is dangerous as well as herculean. 

But the call of home was strong to some. In 
spite of the exile of years, many refugees had 
kept their minds fixed upon the day of victory. 
They were willing to put up with every hardship 
and to give themselves without stint to the ap- 
palling work of reconstruction. Others were 
eager to return for the same reasons that had 
prompted them to leave. When they fled before 
the Germans, they had felt that the unknown 
could not be worse or more uncertain than the 
life they were leading. But they did not make 



Human Currents of the War 117 

good in a new place. During the last months of 
1918 a stream of northerners homeward bound 
flowed constantly into Paris. In Paris they 
stuck. Places on trains were limited, and it re- 
quired influence or an extraordinary amount of 
persistence to get a pass from the military au- 
thorities. Those who managed to break through 
official barriers, however, regretted their success. 
They had gone from places where living was tol- 
erable into conditions worse than those they had 
become refugees to escape. 

In the middle of December a woman from the 
Aisne came to see me. Her face was aglow. 
"My husband has just been demobilized. We 
have a J aissez- passer for ourselves and for my 
sister. We shall spend Christmas at home. 
But our house was looted. I must have sheets 
and blankets and a few kitchen utensils, per- 
haps also a stove. With that for a beginning 
we can get along. I am told that the American 
Red Cross is helping returning refugees in this 
way. Would you mind giving me a letter to 
them?" 



118 France and Ourselves 

A few days later the woman returned. "I 
thought you would be interested in hearing our 
experience," she explained. "The American 
Red Cross in Paris told me that distributions 
were being made from centers in the liberated 
departments under the supervision of the local 
authorities. As our home was twelve miles from 
Laon, we should make our request there. We 
went to Laon. At the Red Cross an applica- 
tion form was handed to us. It would have to 
be passed upon, and we should return in four 
days. Four days! Had we walked out to our 
home and tried to sleep there, we should have 
frozen. There was no place to sleep in Laon. 
One could not buy in Laon the things we had 
to have. If we returned to Meaux or Paris to 
wait the four days, we could not get back to 
Laon. The military authorities take up the 
passes. We found a thousand others that day 
in the same position as ourselves. Most of them 
renounced going home, as we did. My husband 
has a place in a pottery at Limoges. We leave 
to-night. My sister hopes to get into the Paris 



Human Currents of the War 119 

tramways. Shall we ever go home? The only- 
thing I did in Laon was to put our house up for 
sale." 

The next morning I read in a Paris news- 
paper an editorial, signed by a member of the 
French Academy, about the vital importance of 
propaganda to encourage and make possible the 
immediate return of northerners. The Acad- 
emician pointed out that reconstruction first 
of all depended upon getting the refugees back 
home. He insisted especially upon giving every 
assistance to demobilized soldiers who had not 
yet taken root elsewhere. He feared for the 
northern departments the disastrous influence of 
migratory currents. 

One might say that my refugee visitor did not 
have much pluck, and that she and her husband 
were discouraged by a comparatively trifling ob- 
stacle. If that was the kind of people they were, 
how would they have met the bigger problems 
to come, after securing bedding and kitchen uten- 
sils? But when one has been bearing a strain — 
strain of exile, strain of separation from hus- 



120 France and Ourselves 

band, strain of worry about husband, strain of 
making both ends meet — and bearing it through 
five years, trifles count for more than big things. 
It is always that way in life. Governments and 
relief organizations pay no attention to the pe- 
culiar psychology of the human female. In 
this case the persistent hope of years had curbed 
the migratory instinct. Home-going was aban- 
doned in a day for lack of a sheet and a sauce- 
pan! 

Where there is the impulse to go home, much 
could be done to surround the refugee with 
strong and sympathetic arms and to aid him in 
starting anew. Another category of refugees 
furnishes a more difficult problem. The migra- 
tory current has already led to new moorings. 

Recently I was being shown the destruction of 
coal-mine shafts at Bethune. After insisting 
upon the diabolical plan of the Germans to ruin 
French industry by depriving the North of its 
coal, the engineer said to me: "Indemnity, yes; 
but getting paid for this in money is a small part 
of our reparation problem. We don't know how 



Human Currents of the War 121 

long it will take, how much it will cost, what suc- 
cess will meet our efforts, to restore these mines. 
Then we have to rebuild not only the dwellings 
of the miners, but also churches, schools, shops, 
theaters — whole towns and cities, in fact — so 
that we can assure the existence and normal life 
of our workers. Most of this has to be done be- 
fore they come back." 

"Will they come back?" I asked. 

The engineer's face grew grave. I knew why, 
and did not press for an answer. It was a cold, 
rainy, gloomy afternoon in March. As we 
talked we plowed through mud in a country that 
was unlovely before the Germans came. On a 
superb March day, just a year ago, I was lectur- 
ing at a mining-center at the Departement du 
Gard. The superintendent told me that more 
than a thousand miners from the Pas-de-Calais 
and several hundred from Belgium were working 
in his mine. "To increase our output," he said, 
"we have invested in new machinery and have 
doubled the number of our miners. The com- 
pany has built a lot of new houses. When the 



122 France and Ourselves 

war is over, we shall do our best to hold these 
people." 

Walking along in the bright sunshine, I passed 
a row of houses among the firs on a beautiful 
hillside of the Cevennes. It was hard to believe 
that one was in a coal region. Each house had 
its little front garden, with a wealth of flowers, 
and roses chmbed trellises against the wall. Yel- 
low-haired children of all ages, playing in the 
road, indicated the homes of refugees from the 
North. I stopped to speak to a miner. 

"Happy here?" he responded to my leading 
question. "It would be harder to leave Grand' 
Combe than it was to leave Bethune three years 
ago. My children were small then. Now they 
go to school, and have m*ade their friends. Lis- 
ten to their Midi accent! My oldest two are 
working — their first jobs. The boy is a sorter, 
and the girl has taken up typewriting at the 
office. We never knew what the sunshine was in 
the North, and we never had these flowers. My 
wife and I are homesick occasionally. I don't 
deny that. But we are better off here than we 



Human Currents of the War 123 

have ever been in our lives. Monsieur," and here 
he grabbed my arm in his earnestness, "I never 
knew life could be what it is in this place." 

The miner from Bethune had discovered in 
another part of his own country lucrative work 
under easier living-conditions. His growing 
family became anchors to hold him in the new 
surroundings. Had the war ended in 1915 — or 
in 1916 — he might not yet have taken root. His 
case is typical. In every part of France have 
I found refugees from northern France and Bel- 
gium whose exile has turned out to be a blessing 
in disguise. Nowhere, except in parts of Brit- 
tany, did refugees settle in a thickly populated 
country where they were in competition in the 
struggle for existence with the indigenous ele- 
ment. Normandy, the Limousine, the Isere, 
have assimilated easily the influx of refugees in 
small towns. There has been plenty of work 
for every one. In ports and large industrial 
centers jobs were waiting for men and women, 
boys and girls. It is probable that when war in- 
dustries have ceased and the French army is com- 



124 France and Ourselves 

pletely demobilized France will experience a 
period of surplus labor supply. But will the 
migratory current from the north and north- 
east be remedied? If refugees could go home 
to find things as they had left them, yes. But 
with the problem of reconstruction to face, in 
the minds of tens of thousands the contras are 
likely to outweigh the pros. 

In the summer of 1914 a Belgian physician ar- 
rived at a Normandy watering-place with his wife 
and three httle boys. He had left everything 
and expected to face hard days. But the mobil- 
ization had called away most of the French doc- 
tors. There was a chance to practise. For five 
summers I have known this physician. He has 
cared for my family. He used to talk about go- 
ing home. Each summer I have noticed a 
change in him. His practice has grown marvel- 
ously. He goes about in an automobile. His 
boys are preparing for their "bachos" in a French 
lycee. A year ago his invalid wife died and was 
buried in France. Last September, when we 
saw the German line cracking and the Belgian 



Human Currents of the War 125 

army advancing toward Brussels, I talked to the 
doctor of the future of his country. He did not 
seem greatly interested and turned the conversa- 
tion to speculation about the changes the war had 
made in our little corner of Normandy. 

And the French physicians whom the Belgian 
has supplanted? After five years will they be 
able to return and resume their practice under 
ante-bellum conditions? The Belgian is a good 
doctor, a very good doctor, and has won the con- 
fidence of the neighborhood. The demobilized 
physicians will be forced, perhaps, to start anew 
somewhere else. Even had no refugee come to 
my summer home, there would have been other 
Normandy doctors to take the practice of those 
who were mobilized. 

The refugee migratory current is only one 
factor, and by no means the most important, in 
starting other migratory currents. At the out- 
break of the war France called millions of men 
from their homes and occupations and has kept 
them under arms for five years. They have seen 
a lot and learned a lot. They have gone from 



126 France and Ourselves 

one front to another, from one depot to another, 
from one hospital to another. Aside from the 
fighting units, the mobilized workers have almost 
invariably been sent to factories far from their 
homes. The services of the rear have taken men 
in imiform all over France. 

More than eighty per cent, of Frenchmen be- 
tween the ages of fifty and twenty have experi- 
enced not only five years of change of occupa- 
tion, but they have also lived in totally new sur- 
roundings. Farm-hands, who would never have 
been Hkely to leave their villages, have gone to 
live in cities. City folk, whose knowledge of 
the country was limited before the war to Sun- 
day excursions, have lived continuously for years 
in the open. And while these millions have been 
away, profound changes have taken place at 
home. Fathers and mothers and wives have 
died. Children have grown up. Professions 
and businesses have passed into the hands of 
others. Where the same place is waiting for the 
returning soldier, will he come back the same 
man, with the inclination and the ability to re- 



Hwman Currents of the War 127 

sume his old work? How many of the eighty 
per cent, will fit again into former places and 
former occupations? Do we not have to count 
on fresh migratory currents started by those who 
do not fit? 

Other migratory currents, different from and 
not influenced by the refugee and mobilization 
problems, began in France during the war. The 
demand for labor in industrial centers became 
more and more insistent as the war dragged on. 
Profits of army contractors and manufacturers 
were limited only by the amount of labor they 
could command. So they made systematic ef- 
forts to recruit la'bor in agricultural districts, and 
the exigencies of national defense compelled the 
government to refrain from discouraging the 
movement of population to industrial centers. 
High wages were not the sole consideration to 
tempt peasants and villagers of both sexes to go 
to the city. The government put maximum 
prices on grain and butter and eggs, and con- 
trolled trafiic in hve stock. It is true that in 
some parts of France agriculture, owing to near- 



128 France and Ourselves 

ness to markets, brought fortunes to peasants. 
But where transportation was lacking for farm 
and dairy products, more was to be gained by 
going to work in munition factories. One could 
multiply illustrations of this phenomenon. Pa- 
miers, in the Department of Ariege, and Gren- 
oble and other towns in the Department of Isere, 
are striking examples of the trend from the 
country to the city as a result of labor-recruit- 
ing. 

In the first two summers of the war we had 
an excellent laundress whose husband was killed 
at the Battle of the Marne. In 1916 the woman 
announced that she was going to move with her 
children to Paris. "You ought not to do that," 
remonstrated my wife. "You can get higher 
prices and steadier work, but what you gain will 
be more than offset by higher rent and food. 
You will coop your children up in one room and 
be paying more for the room than you do for 
your little house here." The woman answered: 
"But in Paris I can get clothes and milk and lots 
of other things from relief organizations. We 



Human Currents of the War 129 

have n't any here." The woman moved to Paris. 
I saw her the other day. She said she would 
never go back to Normandy. Rehef organiza- 
tions had been good to her ! 

A comparison of figures of population of 1914 
and 1919 reveals the forces of migratory cur- 
rents. The population of France has decreased 
by two millions. Three million men are still 
mobilized at this writing. And yet the popula- 
tion of Paris has increased nearly a million. 
Other cities claim the following increases: 
Lyons, four hundred thousand ; Marseilles, three 
hundred and fifty thousand; Toulouse, two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand ; Bordeaux, one hundred 
and fifty thousand, and St. Etienne, Rouen, 
Limoges, Montpelher, Cette, Nice, Havre, Brest, 
Nantes, and Grenoble from forty thousand to 
one hundred thousand each. The figures can- 
not be checked up until the new census is taken. 
There are undoubtedly exaggerations. But we 
cannot be far from wrong if we take these cities 
and a dozen other centers in estimating that the 
already depleted agricultural regions of France 



130 France and Ourselves 

have contributed to the cities at least three mil- 
lion new inhabitants. What will be lost by re- 
turning refugees is likely to be counterbalanced 
by the marked determination of hundreds of 
thousands of demobilized soldiers to settle in 
large centers. Theaters, cafes, cinemas, paved 
streets, lights, tramways — the excitement, the 
warmth, the joy of herding together — are power- 
ful influences. Eve's taste of the apple was not 
more irrevocable for mankind than the taste of 
city life for these people. Few who have lived 
in a city want to go to the country without having 
in their pocket the money for a return ticket. 

Ever since the armistice the influence of migra- 
tory currents has been felt in the Chamber of 
Deputies and in the attitude of public opinion 
toward peace. 

The sufferers by the German invasion were 
hostile to indemnities in kind. They opposed in- 
demnity bills which provided for the spending 
of the money, by those who received it, in re- 
storing what the Germans destroyed. The in- 
habitants of the North were determined not to 



Human Currents of the War 131 

have a string attached to the reimbursements for 
their losses. The claims, their representatives in 
the Chamber said, were personal claims. They 
did not want indemnities regarded in the light 
of reconstructing purely and simply villages and 
factories and farms. In the changed economic 
order potent reasons may develop to mihtate 
against the reconstruction of cities on the same 
sites or on the same scale. It was urged that 
beneficiaries, therefore, must have full liberty 
to dispose of the sums turned over to them as 
they see fit. 

As regards peace, there was more disposition 
in the early days of 1919 than in the first two 
years of the war to sponsor terms which the 
French believe will contribute to stimulate the 
industrial and economic life of France. Agri- 
cultural questions were put in the background. 
The French want France to become what she 
has never before been, a great exporter of 
manufactured products, with opportunities to 
compete in the world markets on equal terms 
with other nations. The deputies and news- 



132 France and Ourselves 

papers and chambers of commerce of a dozen de- 
partments, regarded as agricultural before the 
war, supported colonial development and expan- 
sion, clamored for a large merchant marine, 
championed a big navy program. What some 
foreign observers called chauvinism and imper- 
ialism, born of victory in the war, was really the 
result of the creation of industries in all parts of 
France to replace those of the North. It is 
true that in many regions the French fear the 
effect of the war upon foreign markets for lux- 
uries, especially for wines. But is not the prin- 
cipal cause the unwillingness of those who have 
settled in cities to face the necessity of returning 
to the land? 

This seems to be proved by the paradox of 
virtually unanimous support for what has been 
termed the reactionary attitude of the French 
Government toward peace at a time when Social- 
ism is making rapid progress in France. The 
Sociahst deputies in the Chamber and the Social- 
ist newspapers, true to their faith, advocated a 
peace of reconciliation, and were enthusiastic 



Human Currents of the War 133 

about the Wilsonian theories. But the French 
proletariat has been imbued with the same feel- 
ing, during peace negotiations, that led the Ger- 
man proletariat to support the Hohenzollern 
government during the war — the f eeKng that the 
well-being of working-classes depends in a large 
measure upon ability to export under the most 
favorable conditions. Refugees and soldiers 
have carried their doctrines into parts of France 
hitherto unaffected by Socialist political propa- 
ganda. In the next French elections, we shall 
see Socialist candidates gaining ground in dis- 
tricts where up to now the Socialists polled very 
few votes. But this does not mean that they 
will secure more seats. Quite the opposite is 
likely to happen this year. Public opinion is 
behind Monsieur Clemenceau and his coadjutors. 
But the seed will have been sown for a sweeping 
movement to the Left later. 

Another symptom of the new spirit created 
by migratory currents is the changed attitude of 
the French toward emigration. The aid France 
received from African and Asiatic colonials was 



184 France and Ourselves 

not greater on the front than in the rear. Ka- 
byles from southern Algeria swept the streets and 
collected the garbage of Paris. There was a 
large influx of population to munition centers 
and ports from Senegal, the Sudan, Algeria, 
Tunis, Morocco, Madagascar and Indo-China. 
Brest, Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Lyons, 
became the world's meeting-places. French 
employment agents scoured Spain and Italy. 
Refugees from Serbia were received cordially. 
All over France one finds farms worked by Ger- 
man prisoners, and garrisons and detachments of 
English, Americans, Belgians, Russians, Cana- 
dians, South Africans, Australians, Portuguese, 
Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Armenians, Syrians, and 
Annamites. Even the friendliest of tourists 
used to feel instinctively the xenophobia of the 
French provinces. Hostility to strangers has 
given way to a welcome for all. Spaniards and 
Italians have already bought farms and settled 
down. In some agricultural regions I have no- 
ticed an Itahanization similar to that of parts of 
New England. 



Human Currents of the War 135 

The French realize their weakness to-day, and 
the fearful handicap for the future, due to de- 
population. A great increase in natality, even 
if it could be counted upon, would not remedy 
this situation for many years. The colonial and 
foreign elements introduced into the country dur- 
ing the war will be needed after the war. Other 
parts of France than the North have suffered 
nearly as much from internal migratory currents 
as from the death toll of the war. It must not 
be forgotten, also, that there were several hun- 
dred thousand Germans and Austro-Hungarians 
in France before the war whose business ability 
and energy contributed to the prosperity of 
France. And the return of Alsace-Lorraine 
threatens to create a migratory current viewed 
with anxiety by thoughtful Frenchmen. The 
German element is being expelled from the re- 
gained provinces. A propaganda is on foot, 
which will have to meet with success if France is 
to hold what she has taken back, to turn east- 
ward again the emigrants who left Alsace-Lor- 
raine after 1871 out of loyalty to France. This 



136 France and Ourselves 

may lead to ruin for some places in France. The 
thriving textile town of Elbeuf, on the Seine be- 
tween Rouen and Havre, is an example. Its 
working population is composed of Alsatians. 
If the Alsatians leave towns like Elbeuf, the 
migratory current will spell disaster in the same 
way as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes did 
under Louis XIV. 

Consequently, the French cannot afford to look 
with disfavor upon the settlement of soldiers and 
other foreigners in France. Most of all, they 
place their hopes in the Americans. My friends 
say, "We need your blood and energy. We 
need your ideas. We have lost so many of our 
own youth that there are splendid openings for 
young Americans. And they can marry well 
here." The Frenchman who talks this way has 
no doubt that his country is the best in the world 
and he is sure of the attraction to the foreigner 
of his superior civilization. He is encouraged by 
the marriage of some French girls to English and 
American soldiers, who have announced their in- 
tention of remaining in France. But he does 



Human Currents of the War 137 

not realize that for the Enghshman as well as for 
the American the new worlds, mostly under the 
rule of Anglo- Saxondom, furnish opportunities 
for youth far greater than France and without 
the handicaps of crushing taxation and obliga- 
tory mihtary service. 

Will not Franco- American marriages mean a 
loss instead of a gain to France? I have met 
many American officers and soldiers who have 
married or intend to marry here. But not one 
of them has told me that he is going to settle in 
France! There are stories in the French press 
of two hundred thousand Americans remaining 
here after the demobilization. The wish is 
father to the thought. While French intellec- 
tuels nourish the hope of new blood in France, 
our presence here is awakening the impulse to 
emigrate to America that the French have never 
before experienced as have the people of more 
densely populated European countries. The 
contact with American soldiers is starting a mi- 
gratory current, yes, but away from France, not 
toward France. The younger generation of 



138 France and Ourselves 

French soldiers, who fought side by side with the 
Americans, and the boys in the villages where our 
soldiers have been encamped, have had the idea 
instilled into them of America as the land where 
one is free from long military service, and where 
one can earn by the labor of his hands triple or 
quadruple what one could hope to gain by any 
kind of work in France. The pay of our sol- 
diers was twenty times that of the French sol- 
diers. In the many places where we put up 
warehouses and laid out ports and railway 
tracks, the French saw American carpenters 
earning, with board and lodging thrown in, 
wages larger than the salary of a city postmaster, 
a chief of police, a sub-prefect, a judge of the 
Court of Appeal, or the rector of a university. 

The American Expeditionary Forces will 
leave few stragglers in Europe. Our boys will 
go home with new and broader vision, but with 
the idea they brought here confirmed — that the 
United States is God's country. Migratory 
currents of American origin, born of our inter- 
vention, will take place within the borders of the 



Human Currents of the War 139 

United States. Will not army and industrial 
mobilization have results in America similar to 
those we have observed in France? The tearing 
of boys and men away from their homes, and 
keeping them away for a long period of time, will 
lead to widespread changes of habitation. The 
intensification of industries will increase the pop- 
ulation of cities and denude agricultural districts. 
Schemes that have been set forth for putting the 
soldier on the land are not going to meet with 
great success. Over against the rare soldier from 
the city who, having learned to live in the open, 
does not want to return to his prison, we must 
put the country soldier to whom constant asso- 
ciation with large numbers of men has been a 
revelation of what Hfe may be. And must we 
not look for the migratory currents created by 
war industries to arouse an interest we have never 
before had in world markets, thus causing us to 
change radically our foreign policy? 

In the wake of the American Expeditionary 
Forces may come a new migratory cm-rent from 
Europe to America, more formidable than we 



140 France and Ourselves 

have yet had to cope with. The devastation of 
northern France and a part of Belgium was 
not unique. Poland, Lithuania, East Prussia, 
the countries of the Danube and the Balkans, 
Russia and the Ottoman Empire, have been rav- 
aged. Races are still set one against the other. 
The financial burdens laid upon every European 
country are so appalling that there is little differ- 
ence in the economic situation of victors, van- 
quished, and neutrals. 

The victors are confronted with this dilemma: 
If they attempt to get their war expenses out 
of Germany, they will have to continue to keep 
under arms all of their young manhood. If they 
do not demobilize soon, they cannot hope for a 
speedy return of nornial economic conditions. 
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium have 
to choose between the burden of bearing arms 
and the burden of paying most of the cost of 
the war themselves. In either case, a migratory 
current to escape the inevitable aftermath of war 
will be started. During the past generation, 
Germany not only held a rapidly growing popu- 



Human Currents of the War 141 

lation, but was a large importer of labor. Ital- 
ians now find another outlet. If Germany, as 
a result of the war, finds herself deprived of her 
sources of wealth — iron and coal and world mar- 
kets for manufactured products — and saddled to 
boot with taxation that means economic slavery, 
millions of Germans will try to emigrate. In 
spite of the glorious future promised by the Con- 
ference of Paris to emancipated races of Austria- 
Hungary, and Russia, one has the right to be 
skeptical. We may juggle with frontiers as we 
will. But we cannot get away from the economic 
laws that were more powerful than armies and 
statesmen in forming the political organic units 
of 1914. Experiments in creating new states are 
likely to increase rather than diminish emigration 
from eastern Europe to America. 

Congress proposes to prohibit immigration 
during a period of four years after the signing of 
peace. Is a blanket measure of this character 
what we want and what we need? Yes — if we 
can now dispense with Europe's contribution to 
our material development. No — if increase of 



142 France and Ourselves 

population by immigration is still helpful to us. 
It is an error to think that prohibition for a lim- 
ited time will save us from undesirable elements. 
After four years the best and most energetic of 
the new migratory current will have found its 
way elsewhere. Would it not be wiser to per- 
mit immigration but make our regulations more 
stringent ? 

We have always handled the problem of entry 
into the United States stupidly and illogically, 
annoying to ourselves and to the immigrants. 
The war has shown us the way, and provided us 
with the means, of suppressing the absm'dity of 
wholesale detention at Ellis Island. As a war 
measure we are demanding a passport, with the 
vise of an American consular official, of every 
person who proposes to put foot on American 
soil. It is possible to continue this machinery 
after the war. We can limit the granting of 
vises to desirables. The applicant's desirability 
can best be determined by investigation on the 
spot in Europe. 

The Parhaments of Great Britain and the 



Human Currents of the War 143 

British Dominions are as keenly alive as we are 
to the necessity of being ready for a strong mi- 
gratory current from continental Europe. Lon- 
don has gone farther than Washington, and 
seems inclined to follow a path that will lead to 
tremendous consequences for Europe. It is pro- 
posed at Westminster to forbid enemy aliens to 
enter British territory for an indefinite period 
and to deport Germans, Austrians, and Hungar- 
ians who are settled in the British Empire. If 
this proposal is carried out, other nations, nota- 
bly Brazil, may follow the precedent set by the 
British. Deportation of Germans from British 
territory would create a forced migratory cur- 
rent as great as that which is already flowing out 
of Alsace-Lorraine and Prussian Poland. It is 
unlikely that the ousted Germans will find it pos- 
sible to settle in their country of origin. Where 
wiU they go, and in what direction will the mi- 
gratory current from Germany flow ? Will pub- 
lic sentiment in America bar Germans and influ- 
ence Central and South American countries to 
adopt the same policy? Upon the answer to 



144 France and Ourselves 

these questions depends, in a very large measure, 
the influence of the war of 1914-1918 upon 
twentieth-century Europe. Nothing is more 
certain than that we cannot bottle up, under ad- 
verse economic conditions, the eighty million 
Germans of central Europe in a German state 
narrowed down to its ethnographical limits. 
Even if we gave back to Germany her colonies, 
they would not support a large white population. 
Do we not have to choose, then, between sharing 
with the German race the development of Africa, 
the two Americas, and Australia, and seeing the 
Germans overflow into eastern Europe and Asia? 
In December, 1914, in the office of a great elec- 
trical manufacturing concern of Berlin, I was 
interviewing one of the chief promoters in Ger- 
many of rapprochement with Great Britain. I 
had come to get his version of the causes of the 
war. "Why is Germany fighting?" he cried, 
jumping up from his desk. "I can put it in one 
sentence. We were nervous to the breaking- 
point over the Westward-Ho preparation of the 
Slavs." In expanding his thesis, the German 



Human Currents of the War 145 

explained the war by migratory currents. Rus- 
sia was pressing Germany. So Germany had to 
press France and Belgium. Great Britain was 
afraid she would be pressed in turn. I suppose 
that if I had met this manufacturer-philosopher 
again after we had entered the war, he would 
have explained our intervention in the same way ! 
Some Americans did. Were not we to be at- 
tacked next? 

Would it be a strange ending for a war caused 
by Gennan fear of a Slav migratory current 
westward, to have a German migratory current 
eastward? Not at all! The greatest wars in 
Europe were due to migratory currents from the 
east and north seeking a way out to the Atlantic 
and MediteiTanean. We read that "civilization" 
was saved every time by the races of the west and 
south stemming the migratory current. The 
French claim to-day that they must go back to 
the Rhine, as they have done in the past, in order 
to prevent a renewal of German aggression. 
But the Eastern menace is relative. The Ger- 
mans have gone eastward to stem the Slav tide. 



146 France and Ourselves 

And at the time of her war with Japan, did not 
Russia try to gain the sympathies of the world by 
claiming that her presence in Vladivostok and 
Port Arthur was essential to save Europe from 
the yellow peril? 

"The world is not changed," says the pessimist 
with a sigh. "History repeats itself. Human 
nature is always the same." Platitudes! What 
is being said over and over again in Paris salons 
is, I am told, being said just as often on the other 
side of the Atlantic. Let us put over against 
them the words of Phillips Brooks, as much gos- 
pel truth to-day as when they were spoken a gen- 
eration ago from a Boston pulpit: 

The real question everywhere is whether the world, 
distracted and confused as everybody sees that it is, 
is going to be patched up and restored to what it used 
to be, or whether it is going forward into a quite new 
and different kind of life, whose exact nature nobody 
can pretend to foretell, but which is to be distinctly 
new, unlike the life of any age the world has seen al- 
ready. It is impossible that the old conditions, so 
bruised and broken, can ever be repaired and stand just 
a,§ they stood before. 



Human Currents of the War 147 

In the backward and forward movement of 
migratory currents in Europe, racial elements 
have been steadily absorbed or united to form in- 
creasingly larger political organisms. In the 
overflow to extra-European countries, new na- 
tions have been created. Racial antagonism and 
intense nationalism are the aftermath of wars 
only to superficial observers who cannot see far- 
ther than the end of their noses, only to oppor- 
tunist statesmen who mistake passing symptoms 
for permanent conditions. 

A mother once said to me: "I have come to 
dread the day my babies learn to walk." 
"Why?" I asked. "Because they can go away 
from me," she said. The status quo is a comfort- 
able condition. But it exists only in infancy and 
decrepitude. Between the beginning and the 
end of life, there is the migratory instinct. 
When this world of ours hears the trumpet of the 
Angel Gabriel, and not until then, shall we be in 
a position no longer to reckon with evolution. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ATTITUDE OF FRANCE TOWARD PEACE ^ 

DURING the first month of its activities the 
Peace Conference showed unanimity only 
in the choice of Premier Clemenceau for presi- 
dert. This was more than a personal tribute to 
the man who led France to victory. It was the 
recognition on the part of the Allied nations, 
great and small, of the unique claim of France to 
first consideration in the solution of the problems 
of peace. Proportionately as well as actually, 
France is the power which has made the greatest 
sacrifices in blood and treasure. From the first 
days of the war the fighting was largely on 
French soil. In her hour of triumph France 
faces economic disaster through the ruin of her 
richest industrial and mining regions. Of all 

1 April, 1919. 

148 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 149 

the warring nations, France could afford least 
the terrible toll in young manhood. 

The Peace Conference has brought to Paris a 
host of journalists from Anglo-Saxon countries. 
Few of them have been in Paris before, and there 
is a tendency among them to pass hasty judg- 
ment upon the attitude of France toward peace. 
If what they write finds general acceptance in 
the British Empire and the United States, the 
effect will be deplorable. The more background 
one has — background of intimate association with 
the French before and during the war — the more 
one hesitates to attempt an analysis of France's 
state of mind in the hour of victory. But the 
analysis must be made in order to counteract the 
impression which is going abroad that the French 
people are hostile to the construction of a new 
world on the basis of what is coming to be known 
in peace-conference circles as "the American 
point of view." 

Imperialistic and chauvinistic elements are at 
work in France, as in all other countries, to make 
an old-fashioned peace in which the spoils will be 



150 France and Ourselves 

to the victors. Reactionary influences are more 
apparent among the French than among the 
British and Americans. They seem to possess 
more power. They have wider and franker 
newspaper support. And one finds very few 
Frenchmen who are wilHng to champion without 
reservations President Wilson's program for 
peace. 

Seeing these surface indications, many who 
have come to report the Peace Conference are 
filled with amazement and disgust. They are 
impatient with the French for not falling into 
Mne immediately with the American program. I 
am sorry to find so little inclination to try to get 
a sympathetic understanding of the French atti- 
tude, so little effort to study the problems con- 
fronting France, and to appreciate their com- 
plexity and intricacy. 

And yet it is not difficult to explain the dis- 
trust, if not actual antagonism, of the French, in 
the opening days of the Peace Conference, to our 
idealistic program. In the first place, French 
mentality is different from ours. The French 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 151 

are less given than we to generalizations, and they 
do not have the Anglo-Saxon ability of self- 
deception. If the French are less sure of the 
infallibihty of their judgments, it is not because 
they are more cynical than we, but because they 
are less naive. In the second place, France 
views the present situation and the peace settle- 
ment from a European-Continental point of 
view. America and most of the British Domin- 
ions have oceans between them and Europe. 
Great Britain is an island world power whose in- 
terests are largely extra-European. Since the 
German Navy has disappeared and the path to 
India is no longer menaced, Mr. Lloyd George 
and his associates have changed their attitude to- 
ward Mr. Wilson. The entire Anglo-Saxon 
world is able to view the actual and future state 
of central and eastern Europe with an equanim- 
ity and a detachment that no Frenchman can 
feel. 

From sheltered positions across the seas and 
on an island that has not been invaded for eight 
hundred years, we Anglo-Saxons of Great Brit- 



152 France and Ourselves 

ain, the United States, and the Dominions, could 
go to the Peace Conference with splendid ideas 
of world reconstruction, and could call upon the 
nations of the world to deliberate first of all upon 
the society of nations, with the disposition of 
Germany's colonial empire as the initial practical 
test of our plan. And at the same time we could 
calmly proceed with the rapid demobilization of 
our armed forces. But we should not have been 
surprised or aggrieved when Monsieur Clemen- 
ceau and his associates (and the French press 
and nation behind them) demurred. The 
French delegates demanded that the Peace Con- 
ference put at the head of its program the impo- 
sition of terms of peace on Germany and the re- 
establishment of order in Russia. 

The entire French nation has been under arms 
for four and a half years. Northern France is 
in a lamentable state. There is economic chaos 
in Belgium, which threatens the stability of the 
Government. Germany remains strong enough 
to render imprudent the demobilization of the 
French Army. Bolshevism is spreading west- 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 153 

ward. If the Entente nations continue to keep 
millions under arms, and do not soon begin to 
center their thought and effort upon industry and 
commerce, serious social um'cst is bound to ap- 
pear. From a world point of view the French 
may not be logical in asking the Peace Confer- 
ence to decide first of all the details of the settle- 
ment with Germany, and to assume immediately 
international responsibihty for restoring order 
in Russia ; but from the French point of view, is 
any other course open to Monsieur Clemenceau 
and his associates? 

One may say without hesitation, also, that the 
weakness and irresolution shown in the first ses- 
sions of the Peace Conference have not reassured 
the French regarding the possibility of creating 
on the spot the society of nations. By consent- 
ing to the formation of a close corporation, with 
several other statesmen to run the conference, 
Mr. Wilson has revealed the inconsistency be- 
tween his words and his actions. The initial 
plenary meeting of the conference was perfunc- 
tory and colorless. The second plenary meeting 



154 France and Ourselves 

ended in vehement protests from the representa- 
tives of the small nations, in which Premier Bor- 
den of Canada joined, against the intention of 
the five great powers to dictate the principles of 
representation and the methods of procedure. 

From the beginning it became evident that 
Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, 
and Japan had decided to make the important 
decisions in secret sessions, to which representa- 
tives of the other states would be invited only in 
a consultative capacity when problems affecting 
their particular interests were involved. China, 
with her four hundred millions, is a "secondary 
state." The eighty million Germans of central 
Europe, and over two hundred million Russians, 
Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Bulga- 
rians, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Egyp- 
tians, whose interests in the decisions of the Peace 
Conference are most vitally affected, are not rep- 
resented at all. The advice of neutral states con- 
cerning the organization of the world league, 
which they will be supposed to join, is not asked. 

Is it any wonder that the French, however 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 155 

sympathetic with the idea of a society of na- 
tions, have little immediate interest in high- 
sounding phrases when they feel themselves on 
the edge of a volcano? Put yourself in the 
Frenchman's place. In one column of his morn- 
ing newspaper he reads that Lille, four months 
after the armistice, is still without food and coal 
and adequate transportation for the renewal of 
her industrial hfe. The next column informs 
him that Premier Clemenceau is presiding over 
meetings where Japan and China quarrel about 
Kiao-chau, and Australia puts forth claims to 
Samoa. The official bulletin of the Peace Con- 
ference announces vaguely that the future of 
Germany's African colonies is being discussed, 
but no step has been taken to establish peace be- 
tween France and Germany, and the conference 
has postponed action on the Russian question, 
pending the improbable acceptance of its invita- 
tion by the Bolshevists and other factions to a 
meeting in the Sea of Marmora. As for Poland, 
whose army of less than a hundred thousand is 
facing disaster through lack of ammunition and 



156 France and Ourselves 

reinforcements, the five big powers have sent a 
commission to Warsaw to find out what is already 
known in every newspaper office in Paris. And 
the Turks keep on merrily massacring the rem- 
nant of the Armenians. This is the situation in 
Febmary, 1919. 

Without impugning the advisability or possi- 
bility of estabhshing a durable world peace 
through the adoption of "the American pro- 
gram," public opinion in France asks that ques- 
tions be discussed and decisions made in the fol- 
lowing order: (1) settlement with Germany 
and suppression of Bolshevism; (2) creation of 
Poland and Czecho-Slovakia; (3) Danubian, 
Adriatic, and Balkan settlements; (4) Baltic and 
Russian settlements ; ( 5 ) liquidation of the Otto- 
man Empire; (6) Asiatic and African problems; 
(7) general world questions, including the so- 
ciety of nations. 

There are wide differences of opinion about 
how these questions should be solved, but as far 
as I have been able to ascertain from intimate 
contact with all classes in France, there is una- 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 157 

nimity in regard to order of solution. I find 
doubt only in regard to the order of (6) and (7) . 
Many Frenchmen are willing to admit that deci- 
sions regarding Asiatic and African problems 
ought to follow the formation of the society of 
nations, but all include the Ottoman Empire 
within the sphere of the general European settle- 
ment which must precede the society of nations. 
If you point out to your French friends the 
American belief that the solution of all debatable 
questions would be different, easier to reach, more 
satisfactory to those interested, more in accord- 
ance with justice, more permanent, if we al- 
ready have our society of nations as a working 
international organism, they will agree with you. 
They will say that you are logical, and that Presi- 
dent Wilson is voicing their hearts' desire; but 
they add that security is France's immediate and 
pressing need, and that after the experiences of 
the last generation no Frenchman would consent 
to subordinate practical and necessary measures 
of security to theories that might not work out. 
Is the French attitude unreasonable? Why in- 



158 France and Ourselves 

terpret it as hostility to the American program? 
The Frenchman says, "Safety first." 

In the French mind, the suppression of Bolshe- 
vism must be undertaken by the Allied nations 
coincident with the imposition of terms of peace 
upon Germany. For if we conclude peace with 
Germany while a state of anarchy is raging in 
eastern Europe, Germany will still have an op- 
portunity to come out of the war victorious. 
The French are more afraid now than they were 
during the war of the German plan to subjugate 
economically, if not politically, eastern Europe. 
A strong Poland, and the former Baltic Prov- 
inces wholly free from German influence, are re- 
garded by Frenchmen as vital necessities for 
safeguarding the future of their own country. 
Bolshevism has already penetrated the Baltic 
Provinces and menaces Poland. As it seems 
likely that the dissolution of the Hapsburg Em- 
pire will bring about the union of the German 
portions of Austria with Germany, the French 
cannot conceive of security for themselves in any 
other way than by having something substantial 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 159 

in the East to replace the Russian alliance. No 
Frenchman forgets that France after the war, 
even with Alsace-Lorraine, will have to face a 
Germany twice as large in population as France, 
and probably more closely knit together than un- 
der the Hohenzollerns. France feels, therefore, 
that she cannot rely solely upon the guaranties 
afforded her by the projected society of nations 
against the possibility of a renewal of German 
aggression. 

It is with these considerations in mind that we 
must interpret the speeches of Monsieur Pichon 
and Monsieur Clemenceau to the Chamber of 
Deputies just before the opening of the Peace 
Conference. The members of the American 
commission to negotiate peace and the journalists 
who accompanied them to Paris were dismayed 
at the "old-fashioned" ideas of Monsieur Pichon, 
which seemed to indicate that nothing was 
changed in the aims and methods of European 
diplomacy. They were aghast when they con- 
trasted the statements of Premier Clemenceau 
and President Wilson, made on the same day. 



1©0 France and Ourselves 

Premier Clemenceau told the Chamber of Depu- 
ties that he was still a partizan of "the balance of 
power," and that if the nations banded against 
Germany had been allies in 1914, Germany- 
would not have dared to attack France. He 
admitted frankly that he could not discuss with 
the Chamber the Government's ideas about terms 
of peace, because he had a maximum and a mini- 
mum program, and was going into the Peace 
Conference to get for France all he could. At 
the same moment President Wilson, speaking in 
England, declared that "the balance of power" 
was an exploded theory, that the United States 
would enter into no alliance which was not an 
alliance of all nations, and that t3ie creation of a 
new world required new methods. 

The apparent irreconcilability between the 
French and American points of view need not 
discourage us, for the French Premier and the 
American President based their conclusions upon 
different premises. Premier Clemenceau was 
thinking of the particular interests of France at 
the present moment. President Wilson was 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 161 

thinking of the general interests of mankind in 
the future. Once we are able to give France 
definite and tangible assurances of speedy eco- 
nomic rehabilitation and genuine security against 
the renewal of German aggression, we shall find 
Premier Clemenceau and every other Frenchman 
sympathetic and enthusiastic in championship of 
the American program for a durable world 
peace. 

We have not the monopoly of hberalism and 
idealism. There is nothing new in President 
Wilson's "fourteen points and subsequent dis- 
courses." One finds in the writings of a dozen 
Europeans, including several Frenchmen, every- 
thing that President Wilson has said about meth- 
ods for establishing universal peace. Men as 
different in character and environment and epoch 
as Sully and Kant have di'eamed of the society 
of nations, as Grotius and Czar Nicholas II have 
proposed to substitute arbitration for war, as St. 
Paul and Karl Marx have proclaimed the gospel 
of internationalism. What Americans are talk- 
ing about at the Hotel Crillon to-day was dis- 



162 France and Ourselves 

cussed in much the same manner in the same city 
by the Jacobins. 

From the windows of the Hotel Crillon our 
earnest Americans look out upon the spot where 
were enacted the scenes that drowned in blood 
the fair hopes of the equally earnest Jacobins. 
Just across the Seine, also within view of the 
guillotine emplacements, President Wilson is 
advancing his program in the closed sessions of 
the "Big Five." While he speaks, soldiers of 
the army of which he is the commander-in-chief 
are being shot down in northern Russia by men 
who sincerely believe they are fighting in defense 
of the principles President Wilson is declaring. 
And Czecho- Slovaks and Poles and Ukrainians 
are executing the American program for peace 
by cutting one another's throats in Silesia and 
Galicia. Invoking Wilson's "fourteen points," 
the Jugo-Slavs are feverishly drilling and equip- 
ping an army to fall upon the Italians. 

The American commission to negotiate peace 
has to learn how to work in the Old World atmos- 
phere. We Americans are temperamentally im- 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 163 

patient. We think quickly and comprehen- 
sively. The spell of the goal is upon us. It has 
frequently occurred in our fighting over here 
that an American regiment would push forward 
to capture a position regardless of the enemy on 
the right and left. Success has sometimes met 
efforts of this kind. On other occasions rashness 
and superabundance of confidence have led us 
into a bad hole. In our fight for the right sort of 
a peace the risk of failure is in following these 
tactics. 

At heart very few people in the Allied coun- 
tries are out of sympathy with the American pro- 
gram for peace, which none denies is the best 
program proposed for the solution of the prob- 
lems confronting the conference of Paris ; but we 
risk compromising the success of our cause by 
faihng to appreciate, as our Allies appreciate 
them, the obstacles to be faced and overcome. 
Reactionary and imperialistic forces are deep- 
rooted and tenacious, but we have the reasonable 
hope of winning and keeping the support of Eu- 
ropean public opinion if we view with tolerance 



164 France and Ourselves 

and treat with consideration the traditional cur- 
rents of European thought. But if, inspired by- 
particular interests or by past experience, we try 
to ride roughshod over the objections raised to 
the application of our principles, we shall run 
into machine-gun fire on our flanks and behind 
us. 

Misunderstandings and fruitless controversy 
can be avoided by adapting ourselves to Old 
World methods of approaching problems. Let 
us refuse to see evidences of megalomania and 
imperialism in the demands of the French dele- 
gates, and let us examine and weigh and discuss 
the French propositions from the point of view 
of loyal friends of France, whose first thought is 
to establish a peace that will rehabilitate France 
and safeguard France in the future. When we 
are sure that we understand the attitude of the 
French people toward peace, then we are ready 
to see if we cannot reconcile our world program 
with the real interests of our ally. 

The demands of France against Germany and 
her allies were outlined in the first year of the war 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 165 

as follows: (1) punishment of those responsible 
for the war; (2) reparation for losses during the 
war; (3) guaranties against future aggression 
on the part of Germany and her allies. In addi- 
tion to these war aims, French statesmen consist- 
ently announced the determination of France to 
support similar demands by France's allies, and 
to sign no treaty of peace which did not emanci- 
pate the nationalities subject to the enemies of 
France. In the course of the war the French 
Government entered into agreements with sev- 
eral of the Allies, justified as war measures that 
seemed necessary in order to bring the war to a 
successful conclusion. After the Russian Revo- 
lution the French Government promised the peo- 
ple to safeguard French investments in Russia. 
In the preliminary discussions with President 
Wilson and in the opening sessions of the Peace 
Conference, Premier Clemenceau declared the 
wilhngness of France to adopt the American 
program in its entirety, including the society of 
nations ; but he made it clear that this willingness 
should not be construed as the abandonment of 



166 France and Ourselves 

the threefold program, sanctions, reparations, 
securites. Nor could France go back upon her 
signature to treaties and her promise to her own 
people concerning Russian investments. 

The question of punishments is more sentimen- 
tal than practical. Although there is in France 
a strong feeling that steps should be taken to 
bring before the bar of world justice the respon- 
sible authors of the war and those who were 
guilty of crimes against internationl law during 
the war, France has no peculiar or intractable at- 
titude on this question. The Peace Conference 
has appointed a commission to look into the ad- 
visability and possibility of punishments, and the 
French will accept its decisions, whatever they 
may be. 

France is not involved alone in the secret 
treaties. Great Britain was a signatory to the 
agreement with Italy, and the other agreements 
are between France and Great Britain. If 
some acceptable way out can be found, France 
will gladly forego the execution of these treaties. 

The emancipation of subject nationalities is 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 167 

unanimously adopted by all the nations repre- 
sented at the Conference of Paris, and the status 
of the emancipated races, with the exception of 
Syria and Armenia, will be determined without 
France advancing special claims and interests. 

French investments in Russia amount to more 
than twenty-two billion francs, but France will 
be willing to agree to whatever decision the Peace 
Conference may take on this subject. 

There remain the two questions of reparations 
and guaranties. In the solution of these one 
finds all the difficulties that are likely to arise 
between France and other nations, especially be- 
tween France and the United States, at the 
Peace Conference. 

France views the question of reparations as 
one which is vital to the very existence of the 
nation. Shortly before the armistice Premier 
Clemenceau stated that France would exact from 
Germany payment of the bill of damages to the 
last cent. When the Entente powers, by the 
memorandum of Versailles, announced to Presi- 
dent Wilson their willingness to receive an offer 



168 France and Ourselves 

of armistice from Germany, and to treat for 
peace on the basis of President Wilson's "four- 
teen points and subsequent discourses," there was 
a specific statement about reparations. The 
French claim that Germany, when she solicited 
the armistice, accepted this important reserva- 
tion in the application of the "fourteen points 
and subsequent discourses." 

If you say to a Frenchman, "The Entente 
powers and the United States have assumed be- 
fore the world the obligation of making peace 
along lines of strict conformity in every detail to 
the principles we have agreed upon," he will an- 
swer, "Yes, but only in so far as the application 
of the principles does not prevent our collecting 
the bill of damages Germany must pay us." The 
French cannot admit that, after the sacrifices 
they consented to make up to the day of victory, 
France should come out of the Peace Conference 
impoverished and unable to hold her own eco- 
nomically against a united and still rich post- 
bellum Germany. The danger of a Pyrrhic vic- 
tory is real to them, and they believe that France 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 169 

is not called upon to waive her claims for repara- 
tions, or accept uncertain security for the pay- 
ment of her bill of damages, in order to make 
easier the formation of the society of nations. 

How is France to receive adequate compensa- 
tion from Germany? When the amount Ger- 
many owes France is fixed by the commission on 
reparations recently appointed by the Peace Con- 
ference, are the French delegates justified in 
accepting simply a blanket assurance from the 
society of nations that Germany will pay fully 
and promptly the amounts assessed? A creditor 
has a right to pass upon the nature of the securi- 
ties and to safeguard amply his interests. Ger- 
many does not possess sufficient wealth to com- 
pensate France for the injuries done to France 
during the war, and the French point out that 
much of the destruction wrought in northern 
France has been the carrying out of a deliberate 
plan to ruin France industrially, and to render 
her for the next generation, even though victori- 
ous on the field of battle, inferior to Germany in 
international industrial competition. If France 



170 France and Ourselves 

asks for a Lorraine frontier farther north than 
that of 1870, for the acquisition of some of Ger- 
many's colonies, for a favored position in Syria, 
and for the creation of a special regime in regard 
to the German provinces on the left bank of the 
Rhine, she bases her claims on the ground of repa- 
rations. "We are not imperialistic, nor are we 
affected with megalomania," declare the French. 
"We want to have in our own hands the means 
of compensating ourselves for the losses incurred 
in the war. If we do not have these securities, 
the existence of France will be jeopardized." 

This is France's attitude toward peace in so far 
as reparations are concerned. We may think 
that France's interests will be safeguarded and 
that France can be assured of equality with Ger- 
many in post-bellum industrial competition with- 
out annexation of German territory, without a 
special regime for the left bank of the Rhine, 
and without increasing her colonial domain; but 
is not the burden of proof on us? If we refuse 
to agree to the French program for reparations, 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 171 

must we not be in a position to offer France a 
satisfactory and certain alternative? 

Now for France's attitude toward peace in so 
far as guaranties against a renewal of German 
aggression are concerned. Last summer, when 
the issue of the war was still in doubt, I was lec- 
turing to the recruits of the class of 1919 in a 
Brittany garrison town. I had the honor of 
being accompanied by the general commanding 
the region. He told me that he always impressed 
upon the drill officers the necessity of instructing 
the boys in more than methods of fighting. 

"We French," he explained, "are extremely 
individualistic. The sacrifices we are making in 
this war are not blind sacrifices. When we fight, 
we want to know not only how to fight, but why 
we fight. I shall give you an illustration." 

We were standing in the middle of a hollow 
square. The general looked out over the eager 
young faces, and told the captain of the company 
to call a boy from the ranks. The soldier came 
up and saluted. 



172 France and Ourselves 

"My little one," said the general, "how many 
times in a hundred years has Germany invaded 
France?" 

"Eighteen-fourteen, eighteen-fifteen, eighteen- 
seventy, nineteen-fourteen, my general," an- 
swered the recruit. 

As he looks to the decisions of the Peace Con- 
ference, these four invasions are present in the 
mind of every Frenchman. And coupled with 
1814, 1815, 1870, 1914 is the fact the Frenchmen 
cannot escape from even in the hour of victory: 
there are in Europe fewer than forty milHon 
French and more than eighty million Germans. 
"The very reason why the society of nations will 
mean the salvation of France," argues the Amer- 
ican or Britisher. But the Frenchman, while not 
refusing to admit the possibility of a solution 
through the creation of a universal league of na- 
tions, has too much at stake to put all his hopes 
in the reign of peace on earth and good will 
among men. He has lived under the shadow of 
the German menace all his life, and his narrow- 
est escape from being crushed under the iron heel 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 173 

occurred only a few months ago. So he says: 
"The Rhme must be, as it was before the nine- 
teenth century, the miHtary frontier between the 
French and the Germans. Denmark must have 
back her Danes. The Slavs and their lands must 
be freed absolutely from German domination. 
Otherwise, we have lost the war." We may 
think that France can be made secure from Ger- 
man aggression by some other means than by 
neutralizing the left bank of the Rhine and by 
despoiling Germany of large portions of what 
she has come to consider through centuries her 
own lands in the East; but is not the burden of 
proof on us ? If we refuse to agree to the French 
program for guaranties, must we not be in a 
position to offer France a satisfactory alterna- 
tive? 

Thus it is that we Americans, apostles of the 
new order and convinced that we have found a 
remedy for the world's ills, must turn from our 
general principles to concrete problems, from 
theories to conditions. If we do not do this, we 
bid fair to arrive at exactly the opposite result 



174 France and Ourselves 

from that for which we are striving. Mission- 
aries of peace, we may engender fresh strife. 
Champions of internationahsm in the best sense 
of that word, we may intensify nationahsm. 
John Calvin, revolting from dogmas, created new 
dogmas. Martin Luther, inspired with the idea 
of strengthening religious faith, undermined it. 
We talk of making a "clean sweep," and think 
that the way to do it is in one great movement; 
but I can remember my mother telling a green 
servant to get at the corners first, and not to go 
forward until she was sure that everything was 
clean behind her. At the Peace Conference, un- 
til we have given careful and sympathetic atten- 
tion to the traditional and instinctive states of 
mind of the peoples whose destinies we are at- 
tempting to determine, we shall make little prog- 
ress toward a workable society of nations. In 
the meetings of the "Big Five" President Wil- 
son may be able to wrest concessions, and the 
smaller nations may acquiesce ; but read carefully 
the official bulletins, and you will notice the quali- 
fying adjective "provisional" or the qualify- 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 175 

ing phrase "in principle." Let us not deceive 
ourselves ! 

France presents at the Peace Conference the 
following maximum demands: 

(1) The return of Alsace-Lorraine, in the 
limits of 1870, without conditions. 

(2) Germany will agree to pay, in whatever 
manner may be specified, the amount of France's 
claims for reparations, as awarded to France by 
the commission appointed for that purpose by 
the Peace Conference. 

(3) German property, public and private, in 
Alsace-Lorraine is to be liquidated by the French 
authorities, and regarded as a payment on the ac- 
count of the war indemnity. The proprietors 
dispossessed wiU become the creditors of their 
own Government. 

(4) Germany shall replace in kind, as far as 
practicable, the machinery, raw materials, farm 
implements, live stock, and whatever else was de- 
stroyed in or stolen from northern France or 
requisitioned by the invading armies ; locomotives 
and rolling-stock seized ; the deficit of coal France 



176 France and Ourselves 

may have to claim over what the Sarre Valley 
produces ; and French shipping sunk by the sub- 
marines during the war. 

(5) France shall have a share of the German 
Navy proportionate to her losses and her co- 
operation on the sea. 

(6) The cession to France of the coal basins 
in the Sarre Valley, the new frontier line not to 
be that of 1814, but to be drawn in such a man- 
ner as to include all the coal-deposits. An esti- 
mate will be made as to the value of the coal in 
this region, and put on the other side of the ledger 
against the losses France has suffered through 
the occupation by Germany of the coal regions of 
northern France. 

(7) The economic union with France, and ad- 
ministration by France, in cooperation with Bel- 
gium, of the remaining German territory on the 
left bank of the Rhine until Germany's debt to 
France and Belgium is paid. When this is ac- 
complished, the inhabitants of these provinces 
are to be given the opportunity by plebiscite to 
decide whether they wish to remain in economic 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 177 

(and possibly political) connection with France 
and Belgium, or to return to their former status 
in the German Confederation. 

(8) The permanent military neutralization of 
German territory on the left bank of the Rhine. 
After the French and Belgian claims for repara- 
tions are satisfied, France and Belgium will 
withdraw their armies. Whatever decision the 
inhabitants may then make in regard to their 
economic and political status, Germany, France, 
adn Belgium bind themselves not to raise or in- 
troduce armed forces into these provinces. 

(9) As much of Schleswig as expresses its 
desire to do so by plebiscite must be ceded to 
Denmark. 

(10) The creation of a strong and united Po- 
land within its ethnographical limits, but posses- 
sing, in addition, the port of Dantzic and a hin- 
terland extending back to purely Polish terri- 
tory. 

(11) Czecho- Slovakia and Lithuania will re- 
ceive from Germany and Austria all the terri- 
tories in which they possess a majority of the 



178 France and Ourselves 

inhabitants or which are necessary for their in- 
dependent economic existence. 

(12) Germany shall cede to France whatever 
portions of her African colonies France asks 
for, after agreement with Great Britain, Bel- 
gium, and Portugal, and renounce the advan- 
tages guaranteed her in Morocco by the agree- 
ments of 1906 and 1911. 

(13) France is to be the mandatary of the 
powers in the organization and control of Syria, 
the boundaries of the said state to be determined 
by the Peace Conference. 

(14) Ample guaranties are to be given to 
France for the integral repayment of money 
loaned by the French Government and French 
subjects to Russia, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, 
and Turkey, and for the protection of equitable 
liquidation of French concessions and business 
enterprises in these countries. 

The "fourteen points" of France are not set 
forth by Premier Clemenceau and Foreign Sec- 
retary Pichon in opposition to President Wil- 
son's "fourteen points." Monsieur Clemenceau 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 179 

and Monsieur Pichon are lawyers representing 
before the bar of world justice the interests of 
their client. They have both stated frankly that 
their first duty as advocates of France in the 
Peace Conference is to secure for France repara- 
tions and compensations for what she has suf- 
fered, and guaranties against the recurrence of 
the danger. 

During the first month of the conference Mon- 
sieur Clemenceau said that he had sacrificed many 
of his personal ideas and prejudices, and had re- 
frained from insisting upon certain things that 
he, as representative of France, thought France 
ought to have. Monsieur Pichon is the spokes- 
man of the Quai d'Orsay, and, willy-nilly, he is 
compelled to set forth and defend the traditional 
point of view of French foreign policy in every 
disputed question. Just as in the case of Eng- 
land, France has a foreign policy the roots of 
which were planted before Columbus discovered 
America, and which has developed along its or- 
iginal lines for five centuries. Dynasties and 
governments have changed in France, but not the 



180 Prance and Ourselves 

Quai d'Orsay. France has experienced invasion 
and defeat, but the bureaucrats in the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs have gone back to their dos- 
siers to take them up again without destroying 
or altering a single document therein. 

So we cannot dismiss with a wave of the hand 
France's "fourteen points" on the ground that 
they conflict with America's "fourteen points," 
which France promised to adopt as the basis of 
peace. We have to convince Monsieur Clemen- 
ceau that his client's interests are not jeopard- 
ized by giving up any of the French claims. We 
have to convince Monsieur Pichon that America 
has found a better foreign policy for France 
than the traditional one of the Quai d'Orsay. 
This is not an asy task for us in either case, but 
especially in the second. We think in decades; 
France thinks in centuries. We have no past 
experiences or present problems analogous to 
those of France. I shall have to limit myself to 
two illustrations. 

TJie left hank of the Rhine. We say that 
Europe became an armed camp in the second 



Tlie Attitude of France Toward Peace 181 

half of the nineteenth century owing to annexa- 
tions, or attempted annexations, contrary to the 
will of the inhabitants, and ask France to con- 
sider her own bitter experience of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. The French answer that when the Rhine 
was the boundary between France and Germany, 
France was able to defend herself, and give you 
examples from Julius Caesar to Louis XIV. 
They point out that only since Prussia installed 
herself on the left bank of the Rhine has France 
been at the mercy of the Germans. 

France in Syria. We say that the liberation 
of subject races should not be taken as the occa- 
sion for a further extension of the doctrine of 
European eminent domain, which has proved to 
be the underlying cause of nineteenth-century 
wars. The French answer that Syria has been 
intimately associated with France since the Cru- 
sades, and that if there are Christian elements 
left in that portion of the Mohammedan world, 
it is because of the protection afforded them by 
France ever since the time of Francis I. The 
Syrians do not want to lose French aid and pro- 



182 France and Ourselves 

tection in their hour of emancipation. If the 
Peace Conference left the Syrians without Euro- 
pean aid, they would be as badly off as under the 
Turks; worse off, in fact, because they would be 
deprived of the protection against Mohammedan 
fanaticism that France has hitherto been able to 
give in virtue of her treaties with the Sublime 
Porte. And if the mandate to organize Syria 
were granted to some other nation, it would be 
a violation of France's moral right and a re- 
fusal to recognize the sentimental interests of 
France in Syria. 

I have said that it is not an easy task for us 
to reconcile America's "fourteen points" with 
France's "fourteen points," but is it a hopeless 
task? No — emphatically no. It is hopeless 
only if we go about it in the wrong way. 

During the latter half of 1917 and the whole 
year of 1918 I enjoyed unusual opportunities of 
coming into close contact with French public 
opinion throughout the country. In every part 
of France I talked with bourgeois, peasants, and 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 183 

working-men about the peace that should be made 
after the war. At the tables of prefets and 
maires and ''notables" I discussed the coming 
peace conference, and what would be France's 
attitude toward peace after the collapse of Ger- 
many. In village cafes and the homes of peas- 
ants I tried out the ideas I was gathering in 
educated circles. I went to industrial and min- 
ing centers to talk with foremen, factory hands, 
miners, skilled and unskilled laborers. I asked 
the small functionaries and the railway men to 
give me their ideas. Except among intellec- 
tuels, there was little knowledge of the aims and 
aspirations expressed in the French Govern- 
ment's program as I have outlined it above. In 
industrial circles I found some notions, but not 
always accurate or fair, of the Government's in- 
tentions when the day of making peace should ar- 
rive. Nowhere in France and in no class of so- 
ciety did I find enthusiasm and unqualified ap- 
proval of what I have called France's "fourteen 
points." On the other hand, in industrial circles, 



184 France and Ourselves 

and sometimes among intellectuels, there was 
warm advocacy of President Wilson's "fourteen 
points." 

Social unrest is widespread in France; the 
people are in a state of high nervous tension. 
The war has imposed upon them sacrifices so 
great in every way that they are ripe for a com- 
plete and radical change in international rela- 
tions. The war lasted too long. Jingoism, 
chauvinism, militarism, imperialism, aggressive 
nationalism, the usual unlovely concomitants of 
victory, are manifest only in the newspapers, 
which fail singularly to reflect public opinion in 
France, and in small elements of the population 
whose strength and influence are absurdly over- 
estimated. The vision of a new world, set forth 
in the American program for peace and in Presi- 
dent Wilson's speeches before and during the 
conference, would have appealed in any circum- 
stances to the underlying chivalry and idealism 
of French character. Under present conditions; 
the appeal is more potent than we reahze. 

Where, then, is the support for a peace pro- 



The Attitude of France Toward Peace 185 

gram which seems on the surface to be a conse- 
cration of old and discredited methods of estab- 
lishing peace after a war? Why did the Cham- 
ber of Deputies give an overwhelming vote of 
confidence to the Government after Monsieur 
Pichon's exposition of foreign policy? Why did 
the French nation stand behind Premier Clem- 
enceau in the initial period of the Peace Confer- 
ence? The answer to these questions is summed 
up in one short phrase, the instinct of self-preser- 
vation. 

If we can make it clear to the French people 
that the society of nations will first of all protect 
them against the possibility of a renewal of Ger- 
man aggression, and will afford them certain 
and rapid means of recovering and holding their 
industrial and commercial and moral position in 
the post-bellum period, no reactionary forces in 
France are strong enough to prevent them from 
accepting the American program for peace in 
its entirety. 

How and in what measure is the United States 
willing to aid and stand by France after the 



186 France and Ourselves 

war? We must satisfy France on this point; 
then everything else will follow as we, and the 
French with us, have dreamed it, as we, and 
the French with us, certainly want it. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NORTHERN FRANCE ^ 

AS we walked through the streets of Soissons, 
the old priest, who was making his first 
visit to the invaded regions, groaned anew at 
every step. The architect and I, accustomed to 
seeing destroyed cities ever since the first mad 
rush of the Hun toward Paris, were affected by 
our companion's distress. When we reached the 
cathedral the priest's despair brought forth 
words. Raising his hands to heaven, he cried: 
"Ossa ista resurgent? Domine, tu scis" 
"Men also know, mon pere" answered the 
architect, gently. "For God restricts the resur- 
recting power of men only when it is a question 
of human bones. We can enter by the transept 
door, and you will see." 

1 June, 1919. 

187 



188 France and Ourselves 

We climbed over a mound of fallen stone. 
Pieces of statues and gargoyles protruded from 
the amorphous mass. Bits of stained glass 
gleamed in the sun. An angel's face stared up 
at us from a chunk of plaster. My cane disen- 
gaged a twisted brass candlestick. The priest 
stooped over to pick up the INRI of a crucifix. 
We had to make our way carefully to avoid 
splinters of carved panels. But when we entered 
the cathedral we realized that German cannon 
had not prevented the Soissonnais from saving 
the heritage of their fathers. The roof of the 
nave and of part of the transept had already 
been replaced. The high altar was prepared for 
mass. Sand-bags protected tombs and shrines. 

With glowing face, the architect pointed to a 
wall built from pillar to pillar to shut off the 
nave. "We were determined to keep the apse 
intact and strengthen the corner pillars. All this 
was done under the enemy's fire. Part of it 
has been done twice. And now we are clearing 
out the nave and rebuilding the walls and roof." 

We went to the other side of the temporary 



The Eeconstruction of Northern France 189 

wall. German prisoners, French soldiers, civil- 
ian masons were working side by side. 

The next day at Cambrai we visited a textile- 
mill which the Germans had turned into a soda- 
water factory. Some buildings were empty. 
The fine looms in others had lost their copper 
fittings, and had afterward been smashed with 
axes by Russian prisoners. An explosion had 
wrecked the machines in the power-plant. 

"I am glad you came this week," said the sup- 
erintendent, "for we are going to begin to re- 
move the debris. New looms are all ready to be 
put in place. If we can get raw materials and 
coal, work will start up within a month." 

At Lille we found the same eagerness to go 
ahead without waiting for government initiative 
or German indemnities. The first winter of lib- 
eration was a cruel deception. So inadequate 
and dilatory were the steps taken by the military 
authorities that the people had become bitter. 

"Nineteen hundred and nineteen is the cru- 
cial year," an automobile manufacturer assured 
us. "Our biggest problems are those of trans- 



190 France and Ourselves 

portation, and we can accomplish little without 
government aid. But if we wait for the Govern- 
ment to take up and direct reconstruction work 
we shall soon be beyond redemption. There is 
confusion, if not anarchy, in the various govern- 
ment bureaus. We have to keep pressing Paris 
to give us food-supplies and a minimum provision 
of raw materials. We insist now that we be al- 
lowed to buy machinery and whatever else we 
need for reconstruction where and how we will. 
My plant was used by the Germans throughout 
their occupation, and they tried to burn it when 
they left. I started in immediately to repair 
what could be repaired, and to order new ma- 
chinery. You can have no idea of the difficulties 
the Government put in our way." 

In Fives, a suburb of Lille, we visited one of 
the most important steel-construction plants in 
France. Here locomotives and rolling-stock for 
the Northern Railway Company were made be- 
fore the war. The Germans sacked the plant, re- 
moving what they could of the machinery and 
destroying the rest. But ever since 1915 the 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 191 

Compagnie de Fives-Lille had been preparing 
for the day of liberation. In their own shops, 
in a branch in central France, machines hare 
been made. They are awaiting transportation. 
After the plant is restored some means must be 
devised to keep it supplied with coal and raw 
materials. 

Throughout northern France the will to get 
back to normal activity is manifest. There is 
the spur of necessity. Everywhere, as at Fives- 
Lille, employers and artisans and laborers know 
that the path of salvation is in the resumption of 
production. In agricultural regions there is the 
same unbroken spirit. And illustrations are 
numerous of local efforts to preserve historic 
monuments, as at Soissons; of refusal to leave 
homes unless forcibly ejected by the military 
authorities. Going through what seemed to be 
entirely ruined cities, one is constantly surprised 
at the sight of people who are working to make 
the ruins habitable. 

But six months after the armistice one is 
tempted to doubt the efficiency, the capacity, the 



192 France and Ourselves 

ability of a government in Paris to undertake 
and carry through reconstruction in the invaded 
departments. Students of democratic institu- 
tions are watching with keen interest the prob- 
lems that have arisen. The doctrine of state 
control of industries is being tested. Is there a 
feeling of solidarity in the nation ? Are the peo- 
ple as a whole willing to make sacrifices for the 
common weal? Is it possible for a highly cen- 
tralized democracy to cope with the difficulties 
of certain categories of citizens, especially when 
those citizens belong to a restricted portion of the 
state? Or must the North be allowed a free 
hand in working out its own salvation, with only 
limited dependence upon, and limited expectation 
of, aid from the rest of the nation? Decentral- 
ization, a large measure of local autonomy, power 
of initiative left in the hands of municipalities 
and communes, seem necessary in order that 
"these bones rise again." 

In 1915 the Ministry of the Interior established 
a special department to study the needs and look 
after the interests of the invaded regions. The 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 193 

prerogatives of bureaucracy were encroached 
upon. A howl went up. Soon the services of 
this department were distributed among the min- 
istries of Pubhc Works, Agriculture, and Com- 
merce. When Hindenburg executed his "genial 
retreat," resulting in the liberation of a hundred 
communes, the preparations of the Government 
proved of no practical value. So reconstruc- 
tion interests were once more grouped under a 
new ministry, called the Ministry of the Block- 
ade and of the Liberated Regions. 

In the autumn of 1918 the Germans began 
their retreat from Flanders. Government prep- 
arations again proved inadequate. There was 
chaos. No one was responsible. Every problem 
was referred to some other bureau. After the 
armistice, the Ministry of Armament was reor- 
ganized into the Ministry of Industrial Recon- 
struction, with a limited field which touched the 
North only in part. At the end of 1918 recon- 
struction questions were intrusted to a Commis- 
sion Inter-Mimsterielle, with representatives of 
the Presidents du Conseil and the ministries of 



194 France and Ourselves 

the Liberated Regions, War, Public Works, 
Agriculture, Industrial Reconstruction, Com- 
merce, and Finance. Premier Clemenceau ap- 
pointed as president of this commission an emi- 
nent Frenchman who had been urging its crea- 
tion for more than three years! 

To assure the transformation and contin- 
ued activity of factories which worked for the 
Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industrial Re- 
construction was granted a credit of two billion 
francs. Monsieur Loucheur, under whose guid- 
ance French industry intensified its production 
during the war, is using this money for ships, 
locomotives and rolling-stock, agricultural ma- 
chinery, fertilizers, and the different machines 
and materials needed to reconstruct the invaded 
regions. But, as two birds must be killed with 
one stone, the orders are given wholly to French 
factories on French soil. Part of the money goes 
to plants created by the state during the war, 
and part to enterprises that worked in connec- 
tion with the former Ministry of Armament. 
The Government had built an arsenal at Roanne 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 195 

for cannon and shells, and a plant at Bourges 
for explosives. The former will repair old and 
construct new railway rolling-stock, and the lat- 
ter will make chemical fertilizers. Private fac- 
tories which furnished wood for aeroplanes have 
been given orders for doors and window-frames 
and shingles. Telegraph and telephone material 
is expected to be produced by factories which 
made aeroplane motors. The new ministry has 
authority to distribute indemnities, to import raw 
materials, to allot labor-supply, and to apportion 
transportation. 

It is admitted that the idea is a good one, and 
that state aid is necessary to tide industry over 
the critical period of cessation of war work and 
demobilization. The state must also control 
transportation and importation of raw materials. 
But public opinion fears waste of money, new 
burdens upon taxpayers, discouragement of in- 
dividual enterprise, and, above all, the crystal- 
lization of state control. Critics are legion to 
point out the difficulties. One cannot pick up a 
newspaper without seeing an article protesting 



196 France and Ourselves 

against the Ministry of Industrial Reconstruc- 
tion. Since large investments must be made for 
new machinery, will not the extension of state in- 
dustrialism, justified during the war by consid- 
erations of national defense, tend to become 
permanent? Will private factories get their 
share of the orders? Will not the state, backed 
by public money, compete with private indus- 
trial establishments? If there is overproduc- 
tion, the state will be tempted to forbid compe- 
tition. If there is increase in the cost of produc- 
tion, the state will be tempted to regulate prices, 
or lose public funds in trying to compete with 
private enterprises and foreigners. The hands 
in state establishments need a period of appren- 
ticeship, which will cause great delay in turning 
out the products sorely needed. The Ministry 
of Industrial Reconstruction is attempting to 
solve industrial problems of the whole of France 
at the expense of sacrificing the immediate and 
pressing necessities of the North. Are the manu- 
facturers of the North to be made to wait for 
their machinery, and the people of the North for 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 197 

their homes, in order to safeguard the industrial 
interests of other regions, which have been fos- 
tered and developed during the past five years 
through the misfortunes of the North? 

The policy of the French Government in re- 
gard to the use of imported merchandise in the re- 
construction of northern France is already unmis- 
takably defined. There is going to be no com- 
petition between French and foreign-manufac- 
tured articles in France. Following the ex- 
ample of other belligerents, the French Govern- 
ment has been requiring importation licenses for 
all goods brought into the country. The reasons 
for controlling importations during the war were 
sound. Precious transportation facilities had to 
be reserved for articles of absolute necessity, and 
purchases abroad were limited in order to pre- 
vent the depreciation of the franc in foreign ex- 
changes. Until peace is signed, war legislation 
holds. After peace is signed, it is certain that 
pressure will be brought to bear to protect 
French industry by levying high import duties. 

But the Lille automobile manufacturer said, 



198 France and Ourselves 

"Nineteen hundred and nineteen is the crucial 
year." In half a dozen industrial centers of the 
North I received support for this opinion 
from men in every line of production. All fear 
the influence of five years of lost markets upon 
their home and foreign trade. They feel that if 
they do not get back to their normal production 
quickly, they will find closed doors — at home as 
well as abroad. 

The five departments of northern France pro- 
duced three fourths of France's coke and one 
fourth of France's steel, most of which was trans- 
formed into manufactured articles on the spot. 
The woolen industry, at Roubaix, Tourcoing, 
Cambrai, Sedan, and Rheims disputed with silk 
the first rank in France's foreign commerce. 
Since 80 per cent, of woolen weaving was in the 
North, and the North furnished the other 20 per 
cent, of raw materials, French woolen cloth has 
virtually disappeared from Paris markets. 
Most of France's linen was spun at Armentieres, 
Lille, Bailleul, Comines, Cambrai, and Valen- 
ciennes; of her cotton at Roubaix, Tourcoing, 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 199 

Lille, Saint-Quentin, and Amiens. The Pas-de- 
Calais was famous for its linen and cotton lace. 
Among other products were pottery, glass, and 
chemicals. The Departement du Nord alone 
had an industrial production of four billion francs 
annually before the war, of which two and a half 
billions were in textile industries. 

In considering the problem of industrial recon- 
struction, too much emphasis cannot be laid upon 
the fact that the textile industry of the North 
was not a phenomenon of the nineteenth century, 
and consequently did not owe its preeminent sit- 
uation to the nearness of coal. Roubaix, Tour- 
coing, Courtrai, Armentieres, Valenciennes, 
Cambrai, and Le Cateau were famous for their 
textile exports as early as the fifteenth century. 
Flanders was the richest and most populous coun- 
try of Europe during the Middle Ages. Its 
woolen, linen, and cotton cloth are the devel- 
opment of ten generations. The wealth of 
France's northern departments was in the skill 
and number of the artisans. All of France's 
weavers of fine cloth were settled there. Within 



200 France and Ourselves 

a radius of fifty miles of Lille one found three 
quarters of France's skilled workmen for five in- 
dustries, more than half for thirteen, and more 
than a third for twenty-three. Fecundity and 
the handing down of traditions and knowledge 
on the part of the artisans, and bold use of cap- 
ital and credit on the part of the manufacturers, 
made the North supreme in French industry. 

The first thought, then, of the manufacturers 
of the North is to prevent organic ruin through 
the loss of skilled workmen. The only way this 
can be done is to start factories immediately. 
They cannot aiford to wait for machinery and 
raw materials. Otherwise, the emigration that 
has already started will continue. 

On the eve of his first departure from Amer- 
ica, President Wilson spoke to Congress about 
the obligation of the world toward the regions 
that suffered from the German invasion. His 
specific mention of the necessity of granting com- 
mercial favors during the period of reconstruc- 
tion is deeply appreciated in northern France. 
But months have passed since then, and noth- 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 201 

ing definite has been proposed on either side of 
the Atlantic for the restoration of French and 
Belgian industries. The Peace Conference has 
lost itself in a maze of problems relating to the 
past and future of mankind. In the meantime, 
a hundred miles from Paris, a tragedy is being 
enacted which may affect more profoundly than 
treaties the new European equilibrium. The 
morale of the people of the liberated regions, 
which resisted superbly during four years of 
German occupation, is being undermined by 
forced unemployment and by the feeling that 
others are taking advantage of their misfortunes 
— more subtle forces of demorahzation than in- 
vasion and exile. 

A Lillois put the situation to me in this way: 
"In other parts of France factories prospered 
during the war. As their products were for war 
purposes, they were allowed to keep some of their 
personnel and the rest was gradually demobihzed. 
They received subsidies from the Government 
and enjoyed special transportation facilities. 
Hver since nineteen-fourteen they have been em- 



202 France and Ourselves 

ploying our demobilized and refugee artisans. 
To-day our engineers, foremen, and skilled 
workmen are bound elsewhere by contracts and 
by not having jobs here to return to. It would 
be enough for us to contend, at the beginning 
of the reconstruction era, with famine and high 
prices and the delays in getting started arising 
from rebuilding, restocking, and gathering to- 
gether again our working forces. But we have 
the opposition of our own countrymen who are 
not interested in seeing us get on our feet. We 
do not succeed in securing permits to import 
machinery from abroad. Why? Because, hav- 
ing lost war orders, manufacturers of central and 
southern France want the monopoly of making 
new machines for us. They even refuse to ad- 
mit that we have a right to priority in the im- 
portation and transportation of raw materials. 
The anxiety of the Government seems to be con- 
fined to sustaining the activity and expansion 
of the manufacturers who reaped rich rewards 
during the war." 

A year ago, in the darkest days of the ad- 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 203 

vance on Paris, I was lecturing in one of the 
large steel-plants of the Loire Inferieure. The 
chief engineer was a refugee from northern 
France. He was not pessimistic about the war, 
for he felt that Germany was at the end of her 
rope. He predicted an internal collapse of Ger- 
many in the autumn of 1918, no matter what her 
military situation might be at the time. But he 
was exceedingly pessimistic about the post-bellum 
relations between the invaded regions and the 
rest of France. He told me that the Govern- 
ment had no reconstruction policy, and that fail- 
ure to take inmiediate measures for the relief of 
the North would be as disastrous to the nation 
as a whole as to the invaded regions. 

"I do not go so far as to predict civil war," 
he said. "That would be absurd as well as im- 
possible. But I do say that the most deplorable 
result of this war for France is likely to be the 
creation of ill-feeling on the part of the North 
toward the rest of France which will weaken 
seriously the solidarity of the French nation." 

At the Peace Conference the French insist 



204 France and Ourselves 

upon the right to the special consideration of 
their alHes. "They say that they have borne the 
brunt of the war, have made the greatest sacri- 
fices, are exposed to the greatest dangers and 
handicaps in the post-bellum period. Not only 
for their own sake, but for the common cause, 
are not the French justified in asking for fav- 
ored treatment? The war is not yet won, and 
a strong France emerging from the Peace Con- 
ference is essential to prevent Germany from 
winning the war. However, it is equally im- 
portant for the French Government to realize in 
turn the justice of exactly the same claim to spe- 
cial consideration that comes from its citizens 
of the invaded regions. What France has been 
in the Entente Alliance, northern France has 
been in the French Repubhc. 

The North must face competition with new 
factories created in other parts of France, and 
with the intact and admirably equipped factor- 
ies of Alsace-Lorraine, in a country of stationary 
population, which means stationary consumption. 
The North has lost foreign markets. Great 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 205 

Britain now produces all the articles formerly 
manufactured in northern France and can sup- 
ply them at home and abroad at lower prices. 
For the time being German markets are lost, 
and in attempting to recover them northern 
France will have the competition of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. Japan is looking after the Far East. 
South America is learning to buy from the 
United States. A Lille newspaper said recently 
that three nightmares were haunting the sleep of 
the manufacturers of the North — inability to re- 
create industries soon enough to prevent organic 
ruin; a new catastrophe, when production is re- 
sumed, through a lowering of prices or overpro- 
duction; trouble with labor, which is likely to 
spread all over France. 

Northerners beheve that the speedy restora- 
tion of their industries is the most vital task of 
reconstruction, which should take precedence for 
the moment over rebuilding cities and aiding ag- 
riculture. For organic ruin is imminent. The 
communities of artisans are the precious heritage 
of centuries. If they are allowed to scatter, the 



206 France and Ourselves 

revenues upon which France is counting for re- 
cuperating her finances will not materialize. 
The manufacturers of the North protest against 
the narrow point of view of virtually all out- 
siders, who conceive the reconstruction of north- 
ern France in terms of brick and stone, cement 
and wood. In talks with those who do not see 
the problems of the North from the chair of a 
functionary in a Paris ministry or through the 
eyes of one who has made a two-days' trip in 
the devastated regions, I have gathered the fol- 
lowing conditions of renascence: 

(1) State aid to restore credits. Without 
waiting for the Germans to pay, the state must 
advance indemnities sufficient for rebuilding and 
repairing, replacing machinery, restocking in 
raw materials, and carrying wages until returns 
come in from articles marketed. 

(2) Exceptions for the North in the applica- 
tion of administrative regulations. The excep- 
tion the North asks for most insistently at the 
present moment is waiving the principle of de- 
mobilization by classes. The North demands the 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 207 

release from the army of artisans, miners, and 
fathers of families of the northern departments, 
irrespective of age. Follow the suspension of 
the income and other state taxes, the modification 
of tariff duties and import and export regula- 
tions, in favor of the North. Northerners point 
out also the unfairness of uniform rules, which 
apply equally to them, in regard to the allot- 
ment of transportation and the distribution of 
imported raw materials. 

(3) A separate admi7iistrative regime for all 
the invaded regions during the period of recon- 
struction. Flanders, Artois, Picardy, Cham- 
pagne, and Lorraine are distinct provinces, with 
different needs and different characteristics. 
During the years of recuperation and readjust- 
ment each province must enjoy an autonomy 
that is not possible under the administrative sys- 
tem of present-day France, with its artificial de- 
partmental limits, each department depending 
upon Paris and having to conform to the general 
laws, decrees, and regulations enacted for all of 
France. At the same time, the five provinces 



208 France and Ourselves 

have many interests in common, owing to the 
privileged position they hope to have during the 
reconstruction period. They ask, therefore, to 
be allowed to deal with the various branches of 
the Government at Paris through an intermediate 
regional administration centered at Lille. 

(4) Special and distinct provisions, national 
and international, in regard to commerce and 
tariffs. France, in her customs duties, must 
favor the industries of the North. In treaties of 
commerce and tariff regulations, Allied countries 
should waive restrictions concerning exports and 
imports intended for and coming from the north 
of France until the invaded regions are on their 
feet. 

It must not be forgotten that only a portion 
of the invaded regions was destroyed in the phys- 
ical sense of the word. With the exception of 
Rheims, the nucleus of industrial life could be re- 
established everywhere without waiting for the 
rebuilding of homes. Work is the magnet that 
draws men to cities. After one gets a job, he 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 209 

looks for a home. It is putting the cart before 
the horse to plan and carry out a wholesale pro- 
gram of reconstiniction of cities and towns, until 
means of livelihood are safeguarded to those who 
remained during the cataclysm and assured to 
those invited to return. Whoever has hved 
through an earthquake or fire or struggle be- 
tween armies knows how tenaciously human be- 
ings cling to the place where they earn their daily 
bread. One finds shelter somehow where he has 
work. The best elements of a population do not 
flee before danger and a shortage of food. Un- 
employment and lack of opportunity to get 
ahead in the world, however, drive very quickly 
from a community the workers of real economic 
value. More than once I have seen the order to 
evacuate a town meet with stubborn resistance 
on the part of people whose homes were being 
shelled and destroyed. The same type of urban 
population, which did not flee before the Ger- 
mans, is now leaving cities of northern France 
of its own initiative. 

Agricultural reconstruction goes hand in hand 



210 France and Ourselves 

with industrial reconstruction. Cereals and 
meat can be sent into the North. But until lo- 
ckl agriculture is in a position to furnish pota- 
toes, green vegetables, fruits, and dairy prod- 
ucts, high prices and the lack of a well-rounded 
food diet will affect economic and health condi- 
tions in industrial communities. More than this, 
the sugar and linen industries are dependent 
upon local production of beets and flax. Be- 
fore the war northern France had a quarter of a 
million acres sown in flax. Since the flax of 
Pomerania and Russia is not likely to come into 
the market again for several years, this raw ma- 
terial is an indispensable asset. 

In the strip of territory from the North Sea 
to Switzerland, where the armies faced each other 
during the years of trench warfare, much of the 
land is dead. The problem of bringing it to life 
again will take a long time to solve. Returning 
it to cultivation cannot be undertaken by its own- 
ers. The state must bear the expense of clearing 
it, of filling in the trenches and shell-holes, of 
fertilization and reforestation. There must be 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 211 

military supervision of this work, for unexploded 
shells and hand-grenades are likely to be turned 
up in any field through which or near which the 
trenches ran. The strain was severe, also, upon 
the forests and farms throughout the provinces 
occupied by the Germans. Fields were plowed 
constantly, sowed without manure, and used for 
intensive production of the same crops. They 
are exhausted, and need to lie fallow for a while. 
Since fertilization out of proportion to the gain 
from the yield is required for at least five years, 
the Government will have to provide the farmers 
with fertilizers. There is nothing haphazard 
about location and extent of forests in France. 
The situation and proportion of wooded lands 
could not be allowed to change without affecting 
water-supply and climate. Nothing is more im- 
perative than the reconstruction *of forests under 
state guidance. 

The pillage by the Huns of farms was scarcely 
less thorough than that of factories. The invad- 
ers made a clean sweep of agricultural machin- 
ery, farm implements, copper kitchen utensils. 



212 France and Ourselves 

bedding, horses, live stock, poultry, and seed. 
In the first renewal of the armistice Marshal 
Foch added the delivery of agricultural machin- 
ery to the delivery of locomotives and rolling- 
stock provided for in the original armistice. I 
suppose he did not go farther in demanding the 
return of stolen property only because what the 
Germans took from the farmers of the North 
had ceased to exist. 

The delegates on the Armistice Commission 
at Spa, as well as the peace delegates at Paris, 
have been warned not to try to exact the pound 
of flesh. But is the criticism that France wants 
to take advantage of Germany's helplessness 
justified? If France does not secure restitution 
from Germany, she will have to devise some 
measures — and without delay — to furnish those 
who were robbed with means of subsistence and 
production. The estimate of a competent au- 
thority that the failure to plow land in February 
and March, 1919, will result in the loss of two 
billions of francs throws light upon the attitude 
of the French delegates. 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 213 

A year before the end of the war, contractors 
and builders presented a memorandum to the 
Government suggesting reconstruction measures 
that should be decided upon in advance. They 
pointed out that as soon as the armistice was 
signed, skilled workers in building trades and 
their employers should be released from military 
service ; factories working for war material should 
be ready to devote their energies to replacing 
what was destroyed; and the privilege of prior- 
ity in transport, given to war material dur- 
ing hostihties, should automatically be accorded 
to reconstruction material. The category of 
"skilled workers in building trades and their em- 
ployers" should include all workers in wood, 
stone, and cement. Cannon- and shell-factories 
should be ready to turn out rolling-stock and 
auto-trucks, iron girders, bridges, and machinery 
for the factories in the North. Adequate pro- 
duction of agricultural machinery could be as- 
sured only by the manufacture of uniform types 
in series. The state must have ready a plan 
to recruit an army of builders and carpenters and 



214 France and Ourselves 

masons, and to house and feed reconstruction 
workers. 

But in spite of numerous bureaus and conmiis- 
sions, nothing was done along these lines. The 
cessation of hostilities found the Government un- 
prepared to grapple with the problem of rebuild- 
ing in the devastated areas. The Government 
is being bitterly criticized now for lack of fore- 
sight, and for the slow progress made since the 
armistice. One must not forget, however, that 
it was still nip and tuck for France during the 
last year of the war — perhaps more so than in 
the earlier years. Victory was a miracle in it- 
self. Was it reasonable to expect another mir- 
acle — the change over night to reconstruction 
with unimpaired energy and ability ? 

An experimental stage in reconstruction was 
inevitable. However pressing the needs, actual 
progress could hardly have been expected during 
the first winter of liberation. Divergence of 
opinion was bound to arise, and governmental 
machinery to break down. After catastrophes, 
the indifference and apathy of those who have 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 215 

not suffered, and the desire of ghouls of all classes 
of society to take advantage of the misfortunes 
of others always come to the surface. On the 
other hand, the problems of reconstruction are 
clearer than they were a priori. Wrong meth- 
ods and impracticable schemes, which threatened 
to waste time and money and divert energy, are 
discredited. What the French did not know 
when the armistice was signed they know now. 
They are ready to do their own part in binding 
up the wounds of their brothers of the North and 
in nursing them through the period of convales- 
cence back to health. They are ready to ac- 
cept and direct the loving aid offered by friends 
of France in other countries. 

On March 8th, at a meeting of the Union 
des Grandes Associations Frangaises, Monsieur 
Deschanel, of the French Academy, who is Presi- 
dent of the Chamber of Deputies, said: "The 
inhabitants of our invaded departments wonder 
whether the rest of France and foreigners realize 
what has really taken place." The challenge in 
these words was answered. By a unanimous 



216 France and Ourselves 

vote, the representatives of the national organ- 
izations declared the responsibility of the rest of 
France in the matter of reconstruction, and the 
solidarity of the rest of France with the northern 
provinces. 

The provinces devastated by the Germans have 
the right to look to France and not to Germany 
for financing their rehabilitation. The repara- 
tion for her crimes Germany owes to France as a 
whole. It is the business of the French Govern- 
ment to collect damages from Germany. But 
the restoration of northern France should not de- 
pend upon when and how much indemnity is 
paid. As France did not succeed in defending 
the integrity of her territory, every Frenchman 
must recognize the debt of honor he owes per- 
sonally to the invaded regions, and assent to the 
sacrifices necessary to finance reconstruction. 
The consideration of interest enters into the ques- 
tion also. Upon the rapid rehabilitation of the 
North depends the recuperation — political, eco- 
nomic, social — of France. 

For months after the liberation of the North, 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 217 

the provinces remained in the zone of the armies, 
subjected to military administration. The re- 
sult was complete paralysis. Not until munic- 
ipal and communal authority was reestablished 
did the work of reconstruction begin. The new 
plan adopted by the Government is to divide the 
northern departments into districts, each au- 
tonomous, with the privilege of recruiting its own 
workers and with control of its own transporta- 
tion. How and when and whether this or that 
town or village or this or that building in the 
town or village is to be rebuilt will be decided 
upon by the people of each community. Is not 
this the only way? Of the 102,000 buildings de- 
stroyed by the Germans, considerably less than 
one half of 1 per cent, were built or owned by the 
French Government. If the 991^ P^r cent, are 
to rise from their ashes, it will be by individual, 
corporative, and communal effort. 

The heart of the world has been touched by the 
misery of northern France. Two continents 
share the eagerness to aid in reconstruction. 
French cities which did not suffer from the Ger- 



218 France and Ourselves 

man invasion have adopted cities of the North 
as filleuls. The idea was taken up in AlHed 
countries, especially in the United States. My 
American readers often write to me, asking how 
they can help France. No letter has touched 
me more deeply than one from a father whose 
only son was killed in the advance from the 
Marne to the Vesle. He was ready to recon- 
struct, at his own expense, the town in which 
his son fell. He named a place of less than a 
thousand inhabitants, the rebuilding of which I 
found would cost about two million dollars. 
But in this case, as in all others, reconstruction 
could not be undertaken en bloc. In coopera- 
tion with the communal authorities, the Ameri- 
can father might rebuild the mairie, the school, 
the fountains, the lavoir, or the church. Homes 
and shops and local industries — ^these depend 
upon the needs of the community, which may be 
entirely changed. Only the people of each com- 
munity can do their rebuilding — and in their 
own way. 

Ossa ista resurgent? Perhaps, after all, we 



The Reconstruction of Northern France 219 

must say with the priest, Domine, tu scis. For 
the answer depends upon an unknown factor, the 
will of the people concerned. The illustration of 
the cathedral at Soissons, however, is significant. 
Our part in the reconstruction of northern France 
is to make the necessary sacrifices, as govern- 
ments and individuals, to show our solidarity with 
those who have suffered for us. We can make 
possible reconstruction. We can smooth the 
path for and strengthen those who are called 
upon to perform one of the most formidable tasks 
of history. At the least, we can refrain from 
discouraging them by indifference and inclina- 
tion to profit by their misfortunes. But, when 
all is said and done, the reconstruction of north- 
ern France depends upon the people of northern 
France. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE CASE AGAINST CAILLAUX ^ 

AFTER the disappearance of the Second 
Empire in the catacylsm of 1870, Thiers 
dominated France. The man who had to make 
a humihating peace with Germany died before 
the new form of government for France was defi- 
nitely decided upon. But he Hved long enough 
to set the example which has been followed 
throughout the half-century of the Third Re- 
public. France has had her parliament, free 
from the control of the executive and master of 
the policies of the nation. There has been a 
Government and an Opposition. But leaders 
have not arisen from parties through advocacy 
of party programs and been maintained in pub- 
lic life by defense of the principles and attach- 
ment to the interests of their party. We hunt 

1 November, 1919. 

220 



The Case Against Caillaiuc 221 

in vain to find continuity in French political par- 
ties. We cannot even classify groups or par- 
ties by a general adherence to political and eco- 
nomic concepts or tendencies. The French have 
no equivalents for parties as we understand them 
in the Anglo-Saxon world. I have often been 
asked to indicate what parties were similar to 
Conservative and Liberal, Repubhcan and 
Democrat, or even Labor. I do not try to an- 
swer. Any attempt at identification of parties 
and groups in the Chamber of Deputies with po- 
litical divisions of the House of Commons and 
Congress involves one in hopeless contradiction. 
Did Thiers stand for the establishment of a 
republic or the restoration of the monarchy or 
empire? We do not know. Thiers rallied 
France around him to meet the crisis of the 
hour — the recovery of France from the disaster 
of defeat by Prussia. In every country where 
political leaders have to depend upon the elec- 
torate for continuing in office, they are oppor- 
tunists. But with the British and ourselves poli- 
ticians are limited by traditional policies and are 



222 France and Ourselves 

bound by party organization. Personal popu- 
larity and a personal following are precious 
assets. And yet, however powerful a man may 
be, he has to go before the public with party 
backing. The greatest leader in contemporary 
American life bucked the system without suc- 
cess. The failure of the Bull Moose campaign 
and the inability of brilliant British and Domin- 
ion statesmen to maintain their power after aban- 
doning their party give proof of the ascendency 
of parties over men in Anglo- Saxondom. 

Only if we keep in mind this essential differ- 
ence can we hope to understand French politics. 
The parliamentary history of the Third Repub- 
lic is a stirring drama of man pitted against man. 
Personalities and not principles have dominated. 
Individuals have espoused causes and raised 
issues and have appealed for support to parlia- 
ment and people, untrammeled by the general 
concepts and particular planks of party pro- 
grams. This explains the insurmountable diffi- 
culty that confronts the Paris correspondent of a 
London or a New York newspaper when he tries 



The Case Against Caillaux 223 

to make clear to his readers the result of a gen- 
eral election in France. One has to give up try- 
ing to draw deductions from the distribution of 
seats, and to prophesy party alignments in the 
choice of premiers when a new cabinet is being 
formed. It explains the uncertainty of the life 
of a cabinet. Above all, it is our clue to the bit- 
ter struggles between leaders that seem so unin- 
telligible to us. Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Bou- 
langer, Paul Deroulede, Waldeck-Rousseau, 
Combes, Briand, Viviani, Caillaux, and Clemen- 
ceau — we have a general idea of what these men 
have stood for (perhaps!), but when we try to 
class them with parties or fixed and continuous 
policies emanating from parties, we begin to 
flounder. 

Now that I have cleared the decks for action 
by renouncing any attempt to identify French 
politicians with parties or to establish an analogy 
between French and our own political systems, 
it is possible to discuss the Caillaux case. 

Since the Dreyfus affair, which mystified and 
then shocked public opinion in Great Britain and 



224 France and Ourselves 

America, no political scandal in France has 
equalled the Caillaux affair. Like Dreyfus, 
Caillaux has been charged with high treason, and 
had his case tried in the newspapers before it was 
tried in court. Public opinion has adjudged him 
guilty and has not protested against an unusually 
long term of imprisonment without the case ever 
coming before a jury. Whatever we Anglo- 
Saxons may think of Caillaux, the fact of long 
imprisonment without trial upsets us. The pro- 
tection of the individual through the Habeas 
Corpus Act is a corner-stone of Anglo-Saxon 
liberty. If Caillaux is guilty of the charges 
against him, why has he not been brought to 
trial? Bolo, Duval, and Lenoir, with whom he 
is supposed to have been associated, were con- 
victed and shot. 

A study of the evidence in the Caillaux case, 
such as has been pubHshed in the newspapers, 
and of the methods of the press campaign against 
Caillaux, give rise to grave misgivings in the 
minds of the seeker after the truth. Caillaux has 
been in prison for more than two years. Al- 



The Case Against Caillaux 225 

though constantly hinted at and frequently 
promised, no proof of his guilt of the treason with 
which he has been charged has been published. 
The letters and telegi'ams made public, and the 
evidence brought out in trials for treason in 
France and Italy, afford only the most circum- 
stantial evidence against Caillaux of intelligence 
with the enemy. We are not sure that Caillaux 
saw or had communication with the German Min- 
ister in Argentina in 1914. There is a tangle of 
contradiction in the whole story about his visit to 
Rome. No direct proof involves Caillaux in 
dealings with German agents in Switzerland or 
Spain. The accusations hinted at in the trials in 
connection with the Bonnet Rouge and the Jour- 
nal have never been substantiated. Many of the 
stories that were allowed by the Government to 
be printed to discredit Caillaux, such as having 
securities hidden in a safe-deposit box in Florence 
to avoid his own income tax and having increased 
his personal fortune during and since his pre- 
miership, were disproved. But, as in the Drey- 
fus case, the newspapers of France, almost with- 



226 France and Ourselves 

out exception, have failed to give Caillaux's side 
of the story. When some newspapers attempted 
to do so, the testimony in his favor was cut out 
by the mihtary censorship. 

A prominent Paris lawyer said to me some 
months ago: "I have the clearest sort of moral 
conviction that Caillaux has been mixed up with 
the Germans before and during the war in trea- 
sonable dealings, and I have no sympathy with 
him. He ought to be shot. But speaking from 
a legal point of view, we have no case against 
him and could not secure his conviction even in 
a court martial. If his case ever does come be- 
fore the High Court of the Senate, I doubt if he 
gets more than Malvy — a decree of expulsion." 

"Then why has he been kept in prison so long 
without trial?" I asked. "To my Anglo-Saxon 
mind that does not seem in accord with the ele- 
mentary principles of justice." 

"Ah! mon ami" the lawyer answered quickly, 
"you know as well as I that the Tiger knows 
what he is about. Salus populi suprema lex is 
justification for anything. As he had gone into 



The Case Against Caillaucc 227 

office on the pledge of getting after the traitors 
and breaking up the defeatist campaign, Clemen- 
ceau would have been a fool to allow Caillaux to 
remain at liberty in France or elsewhere. To 
try him and not secure a conviction was a risk 
our chere patrie could not run." 

I could only agree with the lawyer. I did 
agree with him heart and soul. The mortal dan- 
ger to France of the insidious defeatist campaign 
was fully appreciated by those who came into 
contact with it, as I had done. When the Ger- 
mans knew that American aid would inevitably 
ruin their hopes of military success, they bent 
their energies to the task of demoralizing France 
from the rear. The cost of the struggle had 
been fearful. The nervous tension was grow- 
ing. American military aid came slowly. The 
ground was ripe for a propaganda to make "an 
honorable peace" before France was hopelessly 
ruined. When Clemenceau made his famous 
speech against traitors and defeatists in the Sen- 
ate, heroic measures were necessary if France 
were to carry on. It is well enough for those 



228 France and Ourselves 

who are far from the scene of action to talk about 
technical legal procedure and to view a situation 
impassively and objectively. But in time of 
crisis quick and energetic action, regardless of 
the niceties of law, is imperative. '^^Je fais la 
guerre f' said Clemenceau. When you are strug- 
gling for existence, you have not time to be con- 
cerned with the legitimate safeguards that the 
law and a sense of abstract justice erect for the 
protection of individuals. 

Clemenceau arrested the men who were under- 
mining the faith of France in ultimate victory or 
questioning the wisdom of continuing the war 
jusquau bout. Vulgar traitors, who gave the 
enemy a voice in the French press, were shot. 
Extremists, many of them sincere but none the 
less playing the game of Germany, were silenced. 
Senator Humbert, chairman of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs, was jailed for letting 
the influential Journal^ of which he was proprie- 
tor and editor, get into the hands of Germany. 
Former Minister of the Interior Malvy, despite 
the testimony in his behalf of the four war Pre- 



The Case Against Caillauoo 229 

miers (Viviani, Briand, Ribot, and Painleve), 
was sent into exile for not having stopped the 
defeatist propaganda. Former Premier Cail- 
laux was locked up in La Sante Prison and kept 
there. 

Public sentiment was overwhelmingly behind 
Clemenceau in every step he took to strengthen 
the country internally. This was not because 
Clemenceau came in on the turn of the tide. As 
dark days, from the military point of view, as any 
his predecessors faced had to be lived through. 
And the country was more exhausted and more 
enervated. Nor was it because the blows he 
struck, not sparing the highest, cowed the de- 
featists. The propaganda continued. Power- 
ful friends of Caillaux and the entire Socialist 
press demanded a speedy trial or release for lack 
of evidence. One of the two most influential 
newspapers of the provinces tried to remain 
"Caillautist" in defiance of the censorship and 
other forms of governmental pressure. The 
Chamber of Deputies was hostile to the new pre- 
mier and not unfriendly to the fallen leader. 



230 France and Ourselves 

Clemenceau remained in power to pilot France 
through the "last quarter of an hour" to victory, 
because he dared to keep Caillaux in jail and 
press the trials of the others. If he had weak- 
ened, if he had yielded to technical legal proof, 
if he had been faithful to his own lifelong advo- 
cacy of a free press, he would have been lost — 
and France with him. The fundamental com- 
mon sense of the people, a national instinct of 
self-preservation, put and kept France behind 
the man who embodied the traditional spirit of 
France. 

Public men in Anglo-Saxon countries some- 
times get themselves into trouble and lose their 
influence and popularity. Guessing wrong, or 
failing to succeed, or leading badly, are causes of 
disgrace the world over. Democracies do not 
spare their idols and heroes. But with us the 
public man, who has held a position such as Cail- 
laux held, is protected against universal antip- 
athy and condenmation by party solidarity. 
Newspapers and individuals lose confidence in 
party leaders and their policies. But they rarely 



. The Case Against Caillaux 231 

turn openly against them for fear of "hurting 
the party." They are reserved in public expres- 
sion of their changed opinions. The old chief is 
saved from a sheep-like and universal turning 
away of allegiance by our party system. The 
chief has been spokesman for his party. Dis- 
crediting him is discrediting the party and 
threatens to ruin the political future of the man 
who indulges in violent and open denunciation or 
who abandons the erstwhile leader. For in- 
stance, would it not be interesting to hear "hon- 
est-to-God" opinions of prominent Democrats 
on Mr. Wilson and of prominent Republicans on 
Mr. Lodge? Our mugwampery takes refuge in 
the secrecy of the ballot-box. 

It is not so in France. Nothing is easier than 
the role of Peter in French politics. Ten years 
ago Joseph Caillaux, President du Conseil des 
Ministres de la Repuhlique, was the master of 
France by the will of the people expressed 
through their Deputies. Just before the war 
the crime of his wife dimmed his prestige. But 
he was Minister of Finance, holding down this 



232 France and Ourselves 

important post uncommonly well, and leader of 
the most influential French party. In the last 
general election the Radical Sociahsts had won 
a brilhant victory. And during the first three 
years of the war, despite his growing unpopular- 
ity and the suspicion noised abroad about his po- 
htical activities outside of France, he was unof- 
ficial Minister of the Interior, acting through 
Malvy, with the internal administration of 
France in the hands of his appointees. It was 
not infrequently that your cocher or chauffeur or 
concierge would shake his head gravely and tell 
you that Caillaux was going to be the next pre- 
mier. "The bourgeois will enjoy that, hein! 
Quen dites-vous?" 

How a former premier and party leader, still 
enjoying sufficient power at the moment of his 
arrest to make him a real menace, could be shut 
up in a cell like a convicted criminal and grad- 
ually be forgotten, is not a simple matter to ex- 
plain. At the time of the arrest of Caillaux, it 
was not believed that Clemenceau would have 
dared to take this step without damning proofs 



The Case Against Caillaux 233 

of the former premier's guilt, or that the trial 
could be long postponed. Who would have pre- 
dicted the end of the war, a year of peace nego- 
tiations, a new general election, the convening of 
a new parliament, with Caillaux still in prison 
and untried? 

There are the obvious factors in the situation — 
the unusual power in the hands of a French pre- 
mier owing to the highly centralized administra- 
tive system, enhanced by the state of war (con- 
trol of the manhood of the nation mobilized in 
the army, suppression of right of assembly, free 
speech, free press, and martial law) ; Clemen- 
ceau's appeal for a free hand to win the war; his 
prestige through victory; the anxiety to make a 
profitable peace; the fear of labor getting out of 
hand or becoming contaminated with Bolshevism; 
the exhaustion of a great struggle. 

If this were all there was in the Caillaux case, 
if it were simply a question of a discredited pub- 
lic man who had been discarded, it would not be 
worth our while to devote time and thought to 
Joseph Caillaux. We have so many important 



234 France and Ourselves 

problems to solve in this changing world of ours 
that the fortunes of one man, whether he be 
guilty or innocent, are of little importance. We 
might feel that a country which has allowed Cail- 
laux to stay in jail for more than two years with- 
out trial, thus seemingly having already con- 
victed him, will not be interested in the proceed- 
ings of the High Com-t of the Senate when Cail- 
laux finally does come up for judgment. But, 
like the Dreyfus case, the Caillaux case is bound 
up with a period of history upon which judgment 
must be passed, with national politics, with cur- 
rents of opinion of far-reaching influence and 
purport. 

Bitterness against Caillaux and condemnation 
of Caillaux as a political leader are inspired by 
his fiscal policy and his foreign policy. He went 
counter to the natural instincts of his compatriots 
in the matter of taxation and the matter of rela- 
tions with Germany. His unpopularity goes 
back to the income tax and to the Agadir inci- 
dent. When he comes up for trial, the merits 
and demerits of his leadership in the years before 



The Case Against Caillaux 235 

the war will be brought before the Senate to 
decide upon. France, whatever may be the fate 
of Caillaux personally, will find herself plunged 
into a bitter controversy concerning fiscal and 
foreign policies, past, present and future. 

Students of British politics remember the feel- 
ing in England against Mr. Lloyd George, when, 
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he proposed to 
tax the "unearned increment" in land values. 
The Budget of 1909 arrayed against "the Welsh 
demagogue" all the Tories. The House of 
Lords rejected Mr. Lloyd George's "revolution- 
ary" scheme. But as comparatively few peo- 
ple were affected by the tax, Mr. Lloyd George 
had the nation behind him. The country was ap- 
pealed to a second time, and the fight ended in a 
serious curtailment of the prerogative of the 
House of Lords. One used to hear, however, the 
bitterest sort of criticism of Lloyd George for 
years after Limehouse. You cannot with im- 
punity touch a man in his pocket-book. 

The statesman in France who faced the unen- 
viable task of Lloyd George in England, devis- 



236 France and Ourselves 

ing ways and means to increase the nation's reve- 
nue, was Josej^h Caillaux. Like Lloyd George, 
he had a genius for finance, and his worst enemies 
admit his abihty in budget-making. No other 
man in contemporary France has equaled Cail- 
laux's record in handling the national finances. 
He had a harder task than Lloyd George and 
one that could not win him the favor and ap- 
proval of the bulk of the electorate, however suc- 
cessful he might be. There are few great for- 
tunes in France of any kind and none at all in 
land. Capital is widely distributed. Hundreds 
of thousands have income from investments. 
Taxing wealth, whether by an inheritance or an 
income tax, hits the entire nation and not a class. 
Caillaux's proposal of an income tax was not re- 
ceived with joy by millions of dispossessed, who 
would not have to pay it, as in Great Britain and 
America. (I am speaking of before the war, 
when the exemption figure was high.) Love of 
money and secretiveness in money matters are 
innate in the French. The proposal of Caillaux 
would take money from them and would compel 



The Case Against Caillaux 237 

them to disclose to vulgar functionaries and to 
put on record where outsiders could see it the 
exact statement of their business and their family- 
fortune. 

Opposition to the income tax made Caillaux 
the man in France most hated by the "respect- 
able elements," which include peasants and shop- 
keepers as well as aristocrats and bom'geois. 
Press and people determined to resist its applica- 
tion. The onus of proposing and sponsoring the 
income tax fell upon Caillaux and not upon the 
Radical Socialist party as a whole. The party 
was divided in fiscal policy and was able to shift 
the responsibility for the unpopular measure to 
Caillaux, who accepted it. He defended the in- 
come tax with great skill, using every argument 
he could lay his hands on. He condemned in- 
creasing and widening the scope of indirect taxes 
(dear to the French because they were being 
taxed without having the pain of handing money 
outright to the Government) on the ground of 
the great uncertainty in estimating them, the 
fear that levying additional taxation might lead 



238 France and Ourselves 

to restriction of use of the thing taxed and thus 
deceive the hopes of budget-makers, and the in- 
justice of increasing the burden upon the small 
wage-earners and parents of large families. 
Then, as is the case always where a man becomes 
the embodiment of a principle that is difficult to 
combat in itself, the opponents of Caillaux's in- 
come tax began to seek to discredit the man in 
order to defeat the principle. 

There was of course much that could be used 
against Caillaux. He was vereux, as the French 
say. But questionable honesty in political meth- 
ods and in the stock-market is unfortunately the 
weakness of politicians as a class. And in 
France, corruption in private morals is also com- 
mon among political leaders. If Madame Cail- 
laux had refrained from shooting Gaston Cal- 
mette, editor of the Figaro, the world at large 
would have known little of Caillaux's private 
life. The enemies of Caillaux knew well enough 
that if the scandal brought out at the trial of 
Madame Caillaux was simply a querelle de mat- 
tresses, Caillaux would not be permanently 



The Case Against Caillaux 239 

ruined. Too many of them were tarred with the 
same brush. So they sought to pierce the armor 
of Caillaux at the one politically vulnerable point 
— his attitude, as President du Conseil, toward 
Germany. It was planned to make the assault 
upon the author of the income tax at the closing 
session of his wife's trial for murder. But the 
war clouds broke with dramatic suddenness. 
There were no sensational disclosures. Madame 
Caillaux was acquitted. President Poincare ap- 
pealed to political leaders to form Vunion sacree 
to repel the invader. 

Had the war been averted, had Great Britain 
failed to join France, had Germany won or 
pulled out with a draw, had the United States 
not given financial aid to France, Caillaux would 
have been the wise and far-seeing statesman to 
whom France ought to have listened. Until vic- 
toiy was assured, all his political opponents and 
the bourgeoisie at large feared the return of 
Caillaux to power. They may deny it now. 
But it is none the less true. Fortunately, Cail- 
laux was not called from his cell in La Sante to 



240 France and Ourselves 

be a second Jules Favre. American interven- 
tion brought victory to the Entente. But 
whether or not the cards have fallen definitely 
against Caillaux depends upon the aftermath of 
the war. Is the menace of Germany removed? 
Is France going to be able to afford the price of 
victory? Standing alone, no. Protected by a 
military alliance with Great Britain and the 
United States, and aided by the Anglo-Saxon 
world during the period of reconstruction, yes. 
The judgment of history on the foreign policy 
of Joseph Caillaux depends upon the attitude of 
the British and ourselves toward France. 

As Minister of Finance and President du Con- 
sell, Caillaux realized that the fiscal difficulties 
of France were largely due to the bad relations 
between France and Germany. Increasing 
sums had to be added to every budget for mili- 
tary equipment, for strengthening land fortifica- 
tions, for the navy, and for the maintenance of a 
larger standing army. The population of Ger- 
many and the wealth of Germany were increas- 
ing by leaps and bounds. Public ojpinion in 



The Case Against Caillaux 241 

France supported the prolongation of compul- 
sory military service from two years to three 
years. But the nation's treasurer had to insist 
upon the unpalatable truth that the additional 
sacrifice involved money as well as one more 
year of a young man's life. You had to pay 
and feed and equip the extra soldiers and the 
extra officers required to train and command 
them. If public opinion insisted upon keeping 
pace with Germany, it must accept the income 
tax. The alternative was trying to come to an 
understanding with Germany. 

The limits of a magazine article forbid going 
into the Anglo-French Treaty of 1904 and the 
resultant difficulties between France and Ger- 
many over the status of Morocco. The Alge- 
ciras Convention was differently interpreted by 
France and Germany and led to the sending of 
the German gunboat Panther to Agadir in 1911 
"to protect German rights." It was Germany's 
way of forcing concessions from France else- 
where in Africa in return for German recogni- 
tion of France's special position in Morocco. 



242 France and Ourselves 

Former Premier Clemenceau and former For- 
eign Secretary Delcasse had advocated the settle- 
ment of colonial problems by an miderstanding 
with Great Britain and looked to the British to 
aid France in case the conflict over African colon- 
ies led to German aggression in Europe. Cail- 
laux (and he was by no means alone among 
French statesmen and publicists) believed that 
the friendship of Great Britain was not a suffi- 
cient guarantee for France against Germany, and 
that the wisest course for France was to com- 
pound colonial rivalries and ambitions with Ger- 
many by mutual concessions, as had been done 
with Great Britain in the agi'eement of 1904. 
Despite opposition that never died out even after 
the fait accompli, Caillaux negotiated and signed 
an agreement transferring to Germany sover- 
eignty over a large part of the French Congo. 

The anti-Caillautists and Anglophiles, of 
whom Clemenceau was one of the most able 
spokesmen, declared that France had been humili- 
ated and betrayed. They argued that Ger- 
many's threat of war was a bluff, and that Great 



The Case Against Caillaux 243 

Britain would have stood behind France to the 
bitter end if the Caillaux Cabinet had said non 
jjossumus to the German demands. Caillaux 
was accused of using the Agadir incident to play 
the stock-market. 

In defense of his policy, Caillaux set forth the 
divergence of French and British foreign policy. 
He claimed that the British were of course will- 
ing to make the agreement of 1904 in order to 
secure advantages and remove opposition in 
Africa and Asia. But British interests were 
extra-European. France, on the other hand, 
was primarily interested in Europe. She was a 
continental power, in juxtaposition with Ger- 
many. For the sake of colonial aspirations, no 
matter how fully she could rely upon British 
backing, it was folly for France to keep alive the 
hostility of Germany when there was a possibility 
of establishing better relations with Germany. 
France had neither the money nor the man-power 
to continue indefinitely to be the enemy of her 
more populous continental neighbor. If no war 
came, the weight of armaments would eventually 



^44 France and Ourselves 

crush France. If war came, it must be remem- 
bered that Great Britain had specifically limited 
her promise of aid to the protection of the Atlan- 
tic coast of France against naval aggression, and 
that, only in return for French naval protection 
of British interests in the Mediterranean. 

All who were in Paris from August 1 to Au- 
gust 4, 1914, remember how nervous and uncer- 
tain French public opinion was in regard to Brit- 
ish intervention. Sir Edward Grey told the 
House of Commons that Great Britain was not 
bound to give France military aid. The viola- 
tion of Belgian neutrality precipitated British 
intervention. No one doubts that the British 
would have come to the aid of the French, even 
if the Geraians had not committed this act of 
criminal folly. But it would not have been a 
simple matter to overcome the opposition of the 
Haldanes and M or leys and the strongly pacifist 
labor elements. 

After the outbreak of the war Caillaux would 
not admit that he had been wrong in his estimate 
of the British and in his behef that the war was 



The Case Against Caillaux 245 

an unqualified disaster to his country. Without 
actually committing himself to an opinion as to 
the military outcome, he still maintained that 
France and Germany had a common interest in 
terminating the war as soon as possible and in 
reconciling their conflicting extra-European co- 
lonial ambitions. He remained stubbornly un- 
der the spell of his ante-bellum theories. With 
amazing egoism he conceived himself as the in- 
strument for remaking Europe on the foundation 
of a rapprochement between France and Ger- 
many. I am not concerned here with the ques- 
tion of Caillaux's guilt or abuse of his position 
either before or during the war. The accusa- 
tions against him of treason or of intelligence 
with the enemy are still unproven. But Cail- 
laux himself in his writings and in his speeches 
(notably his book on "Agadir: Ma Politique Ecc- 
terieuref' and his last speech in the Chamber of 
Deputies before his arrest) confessed to holding 
the opinions and following the policy outlined 
above. The opinions may have been well 
grounded and sincere. The policy may have 



246 France and Ourselves 

been wise. But France could not possibly have 
followed Caillaux. 

Adverse judgment has been passed upon Cail- 
laux by his fellow-countrymen because he sinned 
against the national consciousness of France. 
In this sense he betrayed France. A man who 
has been placed by the people in the highest posi- 
tion of trust is under the obligation of represent- 
ing them. As an individual Joseph Caillaux had 
the right of an individual in a free country to 
think and act as he pleased to bring about a rap- 
prochement with Germany. As premier he 
abused his delegated authority, and later as for- 
mer premier the influence derived from having 
been premier, to bring about the triumph of a 
policy antipathetic to the instincts of the peo- 
ple who had entrusted him with leadership. 
Whether or not his policy was, or might have 
been, in accord with the permanent interests of 
France does not enter into the question. 

Two years ago I had the privilege of explain- 
ing to "Century" readers how the French felt 
about Alsace and Lorraine. (1) The loss of 



The Case Against Caillaux 247 

these two provinces affected vitally the life and 
thought of the generation coming to manhood 
and the generation born in the Third Republic. 
It was a question of honor, of justice, of patriot- 
ism. Bygones could not be bygones. Alsace 
and Lorraine were part of the living flesh of 
France. It was inconceivable that a Frenchman 
could attempt to advocate or negotiate any sort 
of rapprochement between the aggressor and the 
victim of aggression that did not have as its pre- 
liminary condition, before bases of compromise 
and mutual concession in other moot questions 
were agreed upon, the restoration of Alsace 
and Lorraine to France. In entertaining the 
thought that he could bridge the chasm between 
France and Germany without taking up first the 
Alsace-Lorraine question Caillaux misjudged 
the sentiment of national honor. This is where 
Caillaux went wrong before the war. 

During the war he showed equal disregard of 
the traditions and sense of honor of his race. 
Perhaps he was obsessed. Perhaps the process 
of pure reasoning or the study of the material 



248 France and Ourselves 

factors and advantages of the problem of 
France's continental policy blinded him to moral 
and psychological considerations. Perhaps he 
mistook the mental attitude of thinkers au-dessus 
de lu melee, or of Sociahsts who regarded every 
problem in the light of class instead of national 
interest for the feeling of the majority in France. 
He came to grief in forgetting the old dictmn 
that "France does not treat with the enemy upon 
the soil of la patrie." ]More than once France 
had been compelled to do so — and with the same 
enemy. But it had been only when the knife was 
at her throat and when she stood alone without 
allies. This was the last straw on the camel's 
back. Once more the Germans had invaded 
France, bringing death and destruction, and 
treating hapless civiHans with a barbarity more 
ruthless than ever before. They were held on 
the ^larne and driven back to the Aisne in one 
of the most costly but most glorious battles of 
French history. And yet a former President du 
Conseil dared to advocate in France, in neutral 
countries and in Italv, cessation of hostilities be- 



The Case Against CaiUaux 249 

fore the task was completed, and reconciliation 
with Germany, the aggressor, the invader, the 
assassin, the pillager. When they found out 
what Caillaux had been doing, the French re- 
volted against the insult of it all. "Bravo!" they 
cried at the news of Caillaux's arrest. 

But now that the war is over and the Germans 
have been beaten and humiliated, and especially 
since Alsace and Lorraine have returned to 
France, the attitude toward Germans is being 
modified. Your hatred of the man you have 
whipped cannot remain as intense as your hatred 
of the bully. The thief who has been made to 
disgorge stolen property is in a different relation 
toward you. The French have paid off old 
scores with a vengeance. But their superiority 
over Germany is due to the fact that they are 
not alone in imposing their will upon Germany. 
The victory could not have been won without the 
aid of Anglo- Saxondom. The peace cannot be 
assured without the cooperation of Anglo- 
Saxondom. 

The French have paid a fearful price for vie- 



250 France and Ourselves 

tory. The excitement and uncertainty and ne- 
cessity of straining every nerve are over. A 
more dangerous period of moral depression is 
being entered upon than at any time during the 
war. The French are beginning to reaHze for 
the first time what the victory has cost them. If 
it proves to be a real victory, with tangible and 
beneficial results, all right. If not — ? 

The unthinkable alternative is possible only if 
the British and ourselves withdraw or gradually 
lessen our military support of France. Is it true 
that Anglo- Saxondom considers its interests 
wholly extra-European, and that the continental 
position of France will compel her to come to a 
rapprochement with Germany after all ? This is 
the significance of the Caillaux case. Are we 
going to give Joseph Caillaux the chance to say, 
"I told you so"? 



CHAPTER IX 



WHAT CONFRONTS FRANCE ^ 



UNTIL Germany forced us into the war, 
public opinion was divided as to the advis- 
abihty of getting involved in the European con- 
flict. Most Americans knew little and cared less 
about what was going on in Europe. We had 
our prejudices and our sympathies. We con- 
demned the invasion of Belgium and the way 
Germany was conducting the war. We resented 
the methods and the appeal of the German propa- 
ganda in the United States. But at the end of 
1916 there were few who dared to prophesy that 
American intervention, even if it became neces- 
sary, would be popular. The astonishing events 
of the first months of 1917 demonstrated the 
absurdity of the belief in our lack of national 
unity. This belief was far more widespread in 

1 December, 1919, 

261 



252 France and Ourselves 

Europe than we dreamed of and was fostered by 
Americans who had lived too long in exile or who 
had become plus royalistes que le roi in their 
championship of one or the other of the groups 
of belligerents. The American people did not 
need to be whipped into line. Every measure 
placed before Congress by the President to make 
our belligerency effective received the irmnediate 
and unanimous approval of the nation. We 
went into the war for all we were worth and were 
willing to consent to every sacrifice necessary to 
defeat Germany. We gave aid to France and 
our other allies to the full extent of our resources 
in man-power, materials, and money. 

But the war was won only in the narrowest 
sense of the word when the Treaty of Versailles 
was signed. Whether the victory is to mean 
anything, whether it is to mark a permanent 
progress on the road toward democracy and world 
peace, depends upon what happens in Europe 
during the next few years. If we do not con- 
tinue to give active aid to our allies during the 
period of readjustment and reconstruction, our 



What Confronts France 253 

intervention from 1917 to 1919 will have proved 
a flash in the pan — no more than that. 

France is the pivot upon which aU turns. A 
strong France means the regeneration of Europe 
and the hope of a world peace for which we 
fought. A weak France means the return of the 
old autocratic regime in central Europe and Ger- 
many triumphant, though beaten on the field of 
battle. Our obligation to France, our moral re- 
sponsibility to "carry on," is as great now as it 
was when the A. E. F. was fighting over there. 

Every news despatch from Europe is impreg- 
nated with the feeling of hopelessness and im- 
pending disaster. Pessimistic forebodings seem 
to be the order of the day. One cannot deny or 
minimize the dangers. But the role of Cassan- 
dra is as futile to play as it is easy to play. The 
crisis through which the world is passing calls 
for constructive thinking. We have to see foun- 
dations upon which to build and be confident that 
we can build upon them. The disquieting radi- 
calism that is captm'ing many of our best intel- 
lects assumes that the regeneration of the world 



254 France and Ourselves 

depends upon the destruction of the existing so- 
cial order. Do the foundations necessarily have 
to be new? Some political systems and organ- 
isms have crumbled and others show serious 
fissures. Does unsuccessful building, however, 
prove that the foundations are responsible for 
instability? We have the most striking demon- 
stration of the falsity of this reasoning in com- 
paring Christ and His church. The great ma- 
jority of thinking men will agree that the salva- 
tion of the world lies in reconstruction on the old 
foundations. That is the way we shall go about 
it. There is no fear that France will be swept 
away from her moorings. In studying what 
confronts France we do not need to take into 
consideration the possibility of a social revolu- 
tion, partnership in a super-state, or the inaugu- 
ration of the era of internationalism in Europe. 

The prevalent idea that France has just passed 
through an ordeal unique in her history, and that 
the nation has never before been called upon to 
face post-bellum conditions as calamitous and as 
hopeless as those she faces to-day, is wholly 



What Confronts France 255 

wrong. Let us leave to the ignorant and un- 
thinking the belief that our experiences are unlike 
those of others. Human nature is never called 
upon to bear more than it can stand or more than 
previous generations have stood. The Preacher 
was not mistaken when he said, "There is no new 
thing under the sun." No historian has been 
able to refute Vico's theory of cycles. If we 
want to forecast the reaction of France to the 
losses and devastation of the recent war, we have 
every reason to study the periods in her history 
when through war her fairest provinces were de- 
vastated, her economic life ruined, her financial 
credit impaired, and her soil occupied for a long 
time by the enemy. 

For propaganda purposes during the war it 
was justifiable to claim that what the Germans 
did between 1914 and 1919 was worse than any- 
thing that had ever happened in France and than 
anything that had been done by other nations at 
war. When I traveled through the devastated 
regions of northern France, I remembered what 
I had read of other invasions in the fourteenth. 



256 France and Ourselves 

fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was of a 
more extended region that Thomas Basin, Bishop 
of Lisieux, said: 

I have seen with my own eyes the fields of Champagne, 
Brie, Gatinais, Chartres, Dreux, Maine, and Perche, 
those of Vexin, Beauvais, from the country of Caux on 
the Seine up to Amiens, from SenHs, Soissons, Valois 
and all the country up to Laon and beyond towards 
Hainaut, hideous to look at, devoid of peasants, full of 
thistles and cactus. 

And Jean Juvenal des Ursins, Bishop of Beau- 
vais, wrote to King Charles : 

How many churches have been burned! They take 
the poor farmers, they imprison them, they put them in 
irons in disgusting places full of vermin. They are 
freed only after having paid more than they possess. 
These brigands mistreat also the women and girls. 
Mills, ovens, cider-presses, every sort of agricultural 
and household utensil is ruined or stolen. Alas ! Sire, 
look at your other cities and countries, like Guyenne, 
Toulouse, Languedoc. Everything is going to destruc- 
tion and desolation — even to final perdition. 

But both bishops lived to describe the wonder- 
ful recovery of France after Jeanne d'Arc com- 
pelled the English to withdraw from the devas- 



What Confronts France 257 

tated regions. Peasants and artisans reap- 
peared, when all were thought to be hopelessly 
dispersed if not dead; cities were rebuilt; indus- 
try, with a fresh impetus, entered into a more 
flourishing period than France had ever known; 
commerce, despite currency depreciated to noth- 
ing, revived and restored confidence in the coin- 
age; and soon the cultivated lands of the king- 
dom were a third more than they had ever been. 
Charles VII became the greatest monarch in 
Europe. It was a far cry — and yet not many 
years — from the day Jeanne d'Arc sought an 
audience with her dispossessed and discredited 
sovereign to the time when the Doge of Venice 
said of the ruler of France that he was "the king 
of kings without whom nothing could be done in 
Europe." 

To cheer up his compatriots during the war 
Ernest Lavisse, the aged historian, wrote a de- 
tailed account of how France was left after the 
wars of the Ligue. The period of strife that 
ended with Henri IV hurt France as much as 
the Hundred Years' War, but the first ten years 



258 France and Ourselves 

of peace brought a change as rapid as that after 
the English had been driven out. The recovery 
was not immediate. Prosperity began to set in 
five years after Henri IV entered Paris. In 
proportion to the population and wealth of the 
country, France suffered more from civil strife 
at the end of the sixteenth century than from the 
Germans in the twentieth century. Four thou- 
sand chateaux and one hundred and twenty-five 
thousand houses were burned and the weaving 
and silk industries were completely stopped. At 
Provins, for instance, four looms out of six hun- 
dred, and at Tours two hundred silk-weavers out 
of fourteen hundred were left. The cities were 
full of beggars, refugee peasants, and unem- 
ployed workmen. In March, 1596, the police of 
Paris counted nearly eight thousand refugees 
sleeping in one cemetery. In 1597, one hundred 
and fifty thousand Parisians died of the plague. 
Etienne Pasquier said that he saw no longer 
France, but the corpse of France, And yet be- 
fore the end of his reign Henri IV was able to 
boast that every peasant could eat chicken on 



What Confronts France 259 

Sunday. In 1598, the Venetian Ambassador 
wrote that France was recovering easily "just as 
that had happened several times in the space of 
a thousand years." 

Prince von Biilow has given remarkable testi- 
mony of the traditional power of the French to 
recover after long periods of war and invasion. 
He declared: 

France has an unchangeable faith in the indestruc- 
tibihty of the vital forces of the nation. No people 
have ever repaired as quickly as the French the results 
of national catastrophes ; no people have found again 
with the same ease self-confidence and the spirit of 
initiative after cruel misfortune. More than once Eu- 
rope believed that France had ceased to be dangerous, 
but each time the French nation confronted Europe 
again after a short delay with its former vigor or 
increased strength. 

The confidence that we have every reason to 
feel in the rapid rehabilitation of France is a con- 
fidence based not only on the admirable spirit of 
the French race but also on the natural resources 
of France. The country has unrivaled wealth in 
her soil, her rivers, her outlet to two oceans with 
the longest port-studded sea-coast in Europe, 



260 France and Ourselves 

and her colonies (the richest of which are very 
near the mother country) . France has the good- 
will and friendship of the world. And we have 
to take into consideration the inestimable moral 
value of the victory and how it was won — a vic- 
tory consecrated by the restoration of Alsace and 
Lorraine. 

In the speech at Strasbourg that crowned his 
long career Premier Clemenceau gave the slogan 
for the reconstruction era. He said simply, 
"Work is our salvation." France has already 
gotten to work. The record of the year since 
the armistice is impressive. Monsieur Tardieu 
has given some of the figures: 2016 kilometers of 
railway reestablished out of 2246 destroyed; 700 
kilometers of canals out of 1075 again in com- 
mission; 588 repaired out of 1160 tunnels and 
bridges blown up; 60,000 houses rebuilt; nearly 
1,000,000 acres (one fourth of the total ravished) 
bearing crops ; virtually all the trenches filled in ; 
and 10,000,000 meters of barbed wire torn up and 
removed. 

To the Ciceronian cry that the republic must 



What Confronts France 261 

not be despaired of, the French have answered: 
Nihil desperandum. 

But what confronts France to-day has three 
elements that are without analogy in past history. 
Upon the problems arising from German politi- 
cal unity, decreasing birth-rate and a national 
debt that threatens bankruptcy, we must con- 
centrate our attention. In examining these 
three problems, explaining the solutions that are 
suggested for them, and pointing out how Amer- 
ica can aid France in solving two of them, I de- 
sire to insist upon the fact that my sources of 
information are French sources. The French 
are alive to the serious character of the problems. 
They have not waited for foreigners to call atten- 
tion to the danger of failing to solve them 
promptly. They do not need to be exhorted to 
confront them resolutely and effectively. No 
nation in the world knows better than the French 
that God helps those who help themselves. They 
proved that during the war. 

Americans and Britishers regard too lightly 
the effect of the numerical and industrial 



262 France and Ourselves 

strength of post-bellum Germany upon the re- 
habilitation of France. They do not compre- 
hend how it is that her continental position handi- 
caps France in a way that neither Great Britain 
nor the United States needs to fear. Writing 
from Paris during the Peace Conference, I at- 
tempted to set forth in "The Century" the atti- 
tude of France toward peace, and show why it 
necessarily differed from the attitude of her 
Anglo-Saxon allies.^ As a continental Eu- 
ropean state, having a frontier in common with 
Germany, it is impossible for France to trust her 
security to the vague and as yet untried formulae 
of the society of nations. She must have more 
positive mihtary guarantees against a renewal of 
German aggression than are required by the 
other great powers. Owing to the wanton de- 
struction of her industries, committed by the 
Germans for the very purpose of putting her out 
of the running as a competitor in commerce, it is 
reasonable for her to demand aid and protection 
against the intact industrial machinery of Ger- 

1 See "The Century," April, 1919. 



What Confronts France 263 

many. Hence the importance of the supplemen- 
taiy treaty with Great Britain and the United 
States. Hence the insistence of France upon the 
necessity of inter-alHed control of Germany's ex- 
port trade until such a time as Germany has 
made full reparation for the damage done to 
French industry during the German occupa- 
tion. 

No one contests the argument that the best so- 
lution of this problem is the formation of a society 
of nations. Then France, no more than any 
other nation, need fear that she will be left alone 
to confront an unscrupulous enemy of superior 
numbers. But the society of nations is still in the 
academic stage. The surcharged atmosphere of 
the Conference of Paris could not have been ex- 
pected to produce a visible charter for an organ- 
ization that must, in the very nature of things, 
be born of the renunciation of particular interests 
for the common weal. The "Covenant of the 
League of Nations" did not have the germ of life 
in it. In the Treaty of Versailles it was an 
anomaly. None of my French friends expected 



264 France and Ourselves 

the United States Senate to accept without reser- 
vation this abortion. 

Until such a time as world-wide public opinion 
is ready to force statesmen to formulate and 
adopt an honest and inclusive and effective cove- 
nant, the French prefer the joint guarantee of 
Great Britain and the United States. We can 
help France best by entering into this guarantee 
and showing Gemiany that we are in dead ear- 
nest in our pledge to protect France against mili- 
tary aggression and unfair commercial competi- 
tion. 

M. Eric Sjoestedt, Paris correspondent of the 
Dag ens Nyheter of Stockholm, wrote in 1913 a 
very clever article on what he called the "depopu- 
lation scare." Monsieur Sjoestedt thought the 
French were bothering their heads excessively 
over the failure of the population of France to 
increase. From the economic point of view, 
France was better off through not increasing her 
population. He pointed to the competitive in- 
dustries of England and Germany to prove what 
happens to nations that multiply too rapidly. 



What Confronts France 265 

The prosperity and tranquillity of France were 
due to the fact that every one had elbow room 
and people could save money and buy land. 
From a social point of view, the limitation of 
families was a distinct advantage to the well- 
being of the nation. 

Most French economists and publicists were 
far from accepting these opinions. They looked 
on the decreasing natality of France as a source 
of economic and social weakness. They had 
their grave misgivings about the manner in 
which French surplus capital was being invested. 
And they wondered about the military inferiority 
of France in the face of Germany. 

This anxiety was also dismissed lightly by the 

Swedish journalist. He said: 

Remains the military point of view. With her pres- 
ent population France is perfectly able to hold her own 
against Germany: for nations cannot use their full 
numerical strength in war. It is physically impossible 
to put millions of men in the field against each other: 
they could neither be fed nor directed. 

How strange assertions like this read now that 
we have been through the Great War! Of 



266 France and Ourselves 

course the French military authorities were not 
as unconcerned as Monsieur Sjoestedt. To 
make up for the inferiority of numbers, the law 
increasing obligatory service from two to three 
years was passed just before the war. The in- 
vasion of France and the occupation of Belgium 
and northern France for more than four years 
by the Germans, despite Russian and British in- 
tervention immediately and Italian and Ameri- 
can intervention later, is proof that the possession 
of a much larger population gives the bigger na- 
tion an overwhelming initial advantage that the 
most closely knit alhances are unable to offset. 
France now relies upon a defensive alliance with 
Great Britain and America. But will it not take 
time to mobilize and train and transport our 
armies to France? And are we sure of the fu- 
ture tendencies of Russia? 

The head-Hnes of French newspapers and re- 
views show very clearly that the molders of pub- 
lic opinion are alive to the dangers of the present 
situation- Glancing through my last mail from 
France, I find these headings: "France is a 



What Confronts France 267 

dying country" ; "The decrease of the birth-rate" ; 
"The problem of depopulation"; "We must in- 
crease our birth-rate"; "Warning — We must 
look out!"; "Let us repeople France"; "For 
large famiHes"; "The struggle against depopula- 
tion." All tell the same sad tale — statistics, rea- 
sons for the evil, dangers that await France, 
remedies. 

In the last normal year before the war (1913) 
the increase in population per thousand inhabit- 
ants in central and western Europe was as fol- 
lows: 

Germany 14«.l 

Great Britain . 11.5 

Austria-Hungary . 11.4) 

Italy 11.3 

France 0.7 

One of the prophets whose voice and pen have 
warned France of the danger ahead summed up 
the problem in a single sentence. Emile Picard 
said: "At this rate it would require 370 years 
for our population to double, while Germany in 
a century has almost tripled her population." A 



268 France and Ourselves 

Japanese correspondent writing from Paris put 
the situation more brutally in the sweeping state- 
ment, "Each year the population of France is 
diminishing: one can therefore reasonably pre- 
dict that at the end of this century France will, 
because of this fact, disappear from the list of 
nations." 

If we are inclined to protest against this star- 
tling conclusion, which seems to make hopeless 
any permanent good arising out of the victory 
over Germany, there are competent French au- 
thorities who are not less positive that France is 
going to impotence and destruction through the 
failure to procreate a new generation. In his 
pastoral letter for Easter, 1917, the Archbishop 
of Auch wrote that while less than a century ago 
France was at the head of all the peoples of 
Europe, to-day she counts for only one tenth. 
In actual increase of population, counting in all 
the Httle countries with a tithe or less than a 
tithe of her own population, France was six- 
teenth on the list of the seventeen European 
countries. 



What Confronts France 269 

M. Paul Bureau, of the Catholic University of 
Paris, declares that unless there is a sudden and 
sweeping change in the demographic charts the 
French nation is doomed to extinction. The fa- 
mous Dr. Bertillon, who has worked for twenty 
j^ears to arouse the French to the breakers ahead, 
insists that the crisis is of recent origin. From 
1856 to 1866 France averaged 1,000,000 births a 
year. In proportion to other countries, she 
ought to have had 1,400,000. From 1867 to 
1882, the annual increase fluctuated between 
1,000,000 and 900,000. The fall in the succeed- 
ing decades of the Third Republic was rapid — 
800,000, 700,000, 600,000. 

"We are falling behind now about 500,000 
births per year in proportion to other countries," 
says Dr. Bertillon. "Our death-rate is increas- 
ing: each year 300,000 above fifty years are dy- 
ing. If the birth-rate continues to fall in the 
same degree, in eighty years there will be no 
France. Reducing infant mortahty is a drop 
in the bucket. In 1913, only 83,000 babies died. 
The best of care and skill could hardly have saved 



270 France and Ourselves 

a quarter of these. The only remedy for France 
is to have as many births as other nations." 

An analysis of comparative population of 
France and Germany shows only one fourth 
more Germans than Frenchmen between forty 
and fifty, and two fifths more between twenty 
and forty. But between seventeen and nine- 
teen — and certainly under that age — Germany 
has more than twice as many males as has France. 
The losses in the war do not change greatly this 
proportion. And the return of Alsace-Lorraine 
to France brings an increase of population that 
scarcely balances the dead and disabled of the 
French amiies. The latest statistics at hand 
show an excess of deaths over births in 1917 of 
269,838; and in 1918, 389,575. 

The failure of France to breed a new genera- 
tion constitutes a military inferiority that no alli- 
ances can make up for. The stipulations of the 
Treaty of Versailles are only temporary. Ger- 
many bowed to force. France will not be able 
to continue to apply that force when the British 
and American armies are far away and demobil- 



What Confronts Frmice 271 

ized. The Anglo-American Treaty helps for the 
time being. France will have a breathing-spell. 
This will give her time to make children. Make 
children she must. France realizes that. 

The handicap from depopulation is far greater 
than military inferiority. Granted that we are 
able to hold Germany to her promises to limit 
armies and the manufacture of war materials, we 
cannot conceive of a larger racial unit being kept 
under the economic control, or being checked in 
economic expansion, by a smaller racial unit, 
especially when the smaller unit is inferior in 
the tools of production. France must have a 
large new generation to man her factories, to 
furnish the home market for manufactured arti- 
cles, to act as agents for trade abroad. 

Decrease in the density of population, or fail- 
ure to increase the density of population, makes 
impossible further development of public works, 
canals, railways, mining, and industrial enter- 
prises. Far-seeing Frenchmen do not hesitate to 
hold up the example of Germany before their 
compatriots. In 1880, with a population of less 



272 France and Ourselves 

than 50,000,000, Germany had an emigration 
overflow of 200,000 per annum. In 1914, with 
a population of nearly 70,000,000, emigration 
had ceased, and from 600,000 to 800,000 foreign- 
ers entered Germany each year to work in the 
fields and in the mines and factories. This re- 
futes the theory that increase in population 
brings economic and social distress by making 
work harder to find. Germany was able to in- 
crease her industries, her means of transporta- 
tion, her cities, her agricultural yield, for the very 
reason that the population grew so rapidly and 
thus made possible greater collective effort and 
expenditure. In America we have had the expe- 
rience of Germany. Our rapid increase of 
wealth and power is largely due to the rapid in- 
crease of population. 

Another serious phase of depopulation is its 
menace to the influence of France overseas. 
With a colonial empire second only to that of 
Great Britain and mostly won since the popula- 
tion of France became stationary, the French 
have been able to carry on and expand up to this 



What Confronts France 273 

point only because the flower of France felt the 
sacred call to a military career. I have had the 
fortune to live in intimate association with many 
men of my own age and older in France. It is 
a generation born between 1850 and 1880. In 
other circumstances than those of the humiliating 
defeat and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, very 
many of these men — the men who have made pos- 
sible the colonial success of France — would not 
have chosen a military career. 

It has been difficult enough to get civil admin- 
istrators for the French colonies. Of bona-fide 
colonists there have been very few. Now that 
the military incentive may be lacking, how can 
France hope to induce her good men — or even 
enough men — to enter the colonial career? 
There is no inducement of caste. Remains the 
reason that has sent Britons overseas — surplus 
population. The present conditions may be 
maintained in the French colonies for a decade or 
two. But that is the limit. Eventually there 
must be more Frenchmen or there will be fewer 
colonies. 



274 France and Ourselves 

Qualified French observers are virtually unani- 
mous in denying that the reason for a low birth- 
rate is the general economic reason, given to ex- 
plain smaller families the world over. In the 
upper classes the economic reason may be true as 
it is in other countries. But France is the last 
country in Europe to be able to advance this 
reason as applicable to the mass of her popula- 
tion. For France has greater natural wealth 
and a better distribution of land and affords more 
opportunities for making a living than any other 
European country except Russia. And there is 
an abnormal discrepancy between the decrease in 
the French birth-rate and that of other countries. 
Dr. Richet said frankly in a recent address to the 
Academie de Medecine: 

The one and only cause of depopulation in France is 
economy. We do not want to have children because 
that entails spending money. It costs to lodge and 
feed and clothe a child, and we do not consent to go to 
that expense. The number of births can be what the 
State wishes. Decide upon the amount of the aid given 
to parents, and you will at the same time be sure of the 
number of French births. There are now 700,000 
births : there will be 2,000,000 if you wish. If a child, 



What Confronts France 275 

instead of causing the family expense, brings money to 
the family, the number of births will be enormous. 

Dr. Richet's reason for the decreasing birth- 
rate is accepted by his compatriots. This is 
shown by the nature of the religious appeal put 
forth in the pastoral letters of the clergy, and the 
remedies, social and legislative, suggested by 
economists and publicists. Bishops endeavor to 
show that restricting the size of families is false 
economy and that children are really a source of 
wealth to the nation and eventually to every in- 
dividual in the body social. The propaganda 
organizations for increasing the birth-rate believe 
that the state must intervene to make it possible 
to raise children without the financial inconven- 
iences — penalties, one might say — ^that now at- 
tend the parents of large families. The advo- 
cacy of legislation to stamp out abortion has been 
superseded by bills to give state aid to parents 
by means of premiums, lessening of taxation, and 
freedom from miUtary service for the father after 
the birth of the third child. The Chamber of 
Deputies and the Senate are considering bills to 



276 France and Ourselves 

modify the civil code in such a way as to allow 
parents the right to make a will, so that property 
and business may be saved from arbitrary divi- 
sion and dissolution. 

The question of taxation means more in rela- 
tion to the problem of natality in France than in 
other countries. I know this from personal ex- 
perience as the father of four children raised in 
France. The vicious system of increasing reve- 
nue by additional indirect taxation distributes the 
burden unfairly. Taxes on food, railway tickets, 
medicines, clothing, consumption of fuel and 
light and water, matches, theater tickets — all 
these means of increasing revenue act as a means 
of decreasing potential revenue-payers. 

The legislators feel that the impulse for reme- 
dial legislation in the matter of depopulation 
must have behind it more than pubHc opinion. 
Voters are selfish, and parents are not apt to get 
a square deal and to secure special privileges of 
state aid and lighter taxes unless their electoral 
influence is greatly increased. The franchise in 
France puts the fathers of large families in 



What Confronts France 277 

a shockingly disadvantageous position. Three 
fourths of the French electorate have no particu- 
lar interest in the problem of what to do for the 
family with three children or more. And yet the 
other fourth represents considerably more than 
half the population of France. That fathers 
should have the right to supplementary votes for 
all their living children is a proposal that is being 
taken seriously. A bill to that effect was de- 
feated in the Chamber of Deputies by the narrow 
margin of 219 against 200. The project is be- 
fore the Senate now. If the defeat of Germany 
results in being able to cut down the standing 
army, there is no doubt parenthood and not age 
will be the criterion of exemption from miUtary 
service. 

A remarkably large foundation for a country 
of few millionaires has been established in France 
by Theodore Cognacq. The fund, which is man- 
aged by the Academie de Medecine, amounts to 
50,000,000 francs. The interest is to be given 
yearly to ninety families of nine children or more. 
This year twelve thousand families applied for 



278 France and Ourselves 

the grant. The Academic Franpaise is also tak- 
ing part in the new movement to stimulate the 
birth-rate. A part of its numerous prix de vertu 
are now being awarded to parents who have 
brought up large families. From the different 
foundations twenty-one families received in 1916 
prizes of from 1000 to 2000 francs. The average 
number of children to the family was sixteen, of 
whom fourteen were living. In 1917, for two big 
prizes of 10,000 francs each, there were four hun- 
dred apphcations. Thirty of the families had 
more than fifteen children. It is a mistake to 
think that patriarchal life has entirely disap- 
peared from France. 

Have I not said enough to convince my readers 
that the problem of depopulation is not hopeless 
of solution and that intelligent efforts are being 
made in France to check the decreasing birth- 
rate? 

In her finances, France is suffering from a 
stupid and short-sighted fiscal policy before and 
during the war. I am not going to quote figures 
as I did in illustrating the depopulation problem. 



What Confronts France 279 

The total of France's indebtedness is not a mat- 
ter of interest. For in speaking of money, fig- 
ures have lost all meaning since 1914. We have 
to revise our ideas of the seemingly unlimited pos- 
sibiHties of the extension of credit. No banker 
or economist had ever dreamed of a w^orld wslt 
in which the belligerents could continue to bor- 
row from one another and from their own na- 
tionals year after year without thought of how 
the debts were piling up beyond the limit of in- 
terest payment, let alone beyond the possibility of 
liquidation. 

"There isn't so much money in the world!" 
cried Thiers, when Bismarck demanded six bil- 
lion francs as a war indemnity in 1871. Bis- 
marck probably thought so, too, for he reduced 
the amount to five billions. And yet to-day we 
have imposed upon Germany twenty-five times 
as much as the 1871 indemnity as the minimum 
she must pay. France, with scarcely more popu- 
lation than in 1871, is confronted with an annual 
budget of from eighteen to twenty-two billion 
francs per annum. The discrepancy of four 



280 France and Ourselves 

billions per annum in the budget estimates of 
experts shows how far we have traveled since the 
time of Thiers ! 

Few Frenchmen are counting upon the Ger- 
man war indemnity to ease the financial situation 
of France. If the Germans pay for the destruc- 
tion and the requisitions during the period of 
invasion and occupation, we shall be surprised. 
That bill mounts up beyond the financial capacity 
of Germany. If the huge additional sum for 
pensions is exacted, the hopes of the most opti- 
mistic Frenchmen will be realized. The war 
debts, with the appalling annual interest exceed- 
ing the total revenue of France before the war, 
remain to be met. We are told that France has 
increased her revenue from five billion to twelve 
billion francs since 1914. But let us not be de- 
ceived by this statement. An important part of 
the increase comes from taxing war profits, and 
ceases in 1920. The war-profits tax was not 
revenue. It was simply a compulsory discount 
on government orders. 

When we examine the financial situation of 



What Confronts France 281 

France with the question in mind as to how 
France is to make both ends meet, the answer is 
that France cannot hope to pay her obligations, 
much less her current expenses. Is bankruptcy 
the alternative? That depends upon what we 
mean by bankruptcy. It would be bankruptcy 
if France were to default interest payment on the 
sums borrowed abroad or on what is owed abroad 
for purchases made during the war. We may be 
sure that this will never happen. Some critics 
are saying that because France is already seek- 
ing new credits in America for payment of bills 
due and for purchases and for interest due our 
Government, we can infer that France is insol- 
vent. The inference is wrong. These new 
credits are being sought not because of lack of 
money to meet obligations but because of unwill- 
ingness to make huge payments abroad in dollars 
when the franc is so greatly depreciated. France 
can now honor and will be able in the future to 
honor all her foreign debts both as to interest 
and principal. But she asks her more fortunate 
allies to wait until exchange returns to normal, 



282 France and Ourselves 

and to help her stabiHze exchange by refraining 
from compelhng her to buy an enormous num- 
ber of dollars each month. 

In considering the payment of obligations to 
her own citizens, France does not need to take 
the same attitude. The French people will have 
to reaHze that they are France and that they can- 
not be creditors and debtors at the same time. 
More than ten per cent, of the French internal 
war loans is water — in one of the loans nearly 
thirty per cent. The men who managed the 
treasury of France during the war were not as 
confident of the patriotism of the people as the 
men who managed the army. None hesitated to 
call upon the French to give their husbands and 
sons. When it came to money — well, that was 
another matter! High interest and the hope of 
gain by issuing the loans below par were the 
inducements held out to thrifty investors. 

Perhaps during the war no other policy was 
possible. Many who paid the price of blood 
would have refused to pay the price of gold. 
French character is curious and incomprehensible 



What Confronts France 283 

when it comes to money matters. It is the one 
place where the French lose their wonderful sense 
of proportion and where they are incapable of 
reasoning things out. But now the French na- 
tion is confronted with the necessity of paying 
for the war. France has not been impoverished 
by the war. Far from it! Outside of the in- 
vaded regions the country has increased in pros- 
perity since 1914. There is more money in the 
savings banks and in other forms of investment 
at home than in 1914. The person who looks on 
the gloomy side of French finances is the one 
who refuses to study the actual financial condi- 
tion of the French people. There is plenty of 
money in France: it has only changed hands. 
The Government did not try to pay for the war 
during the war. Instead, the money that ought 
to have come into the French treasury as taxes, 
came in as loans. It is ridiculous to object that 
the French could not have stood heavy additional 
taxation. What they put into the war loans rep- 
resented money, and a good part of it money 
earned in the war and because of the war. 



284 France and Ourselves 

The financial remedy for France is to decrease 
her internal war debts by drastic measures. The 
loans are widely distributed and are mostly car- 
ried by those who can afford to forego them. For 
if the interest and principal are to be paid, the 
money must come from those who hold the loan 
certificates. Some sort of veiled repudiation of 
the internal war debt will have to be devised. 
None can now object if the capital is fixed at the 
actual sum paid in by the subscriber. This will 
be the first step. Then the interest rate will be 
cut. Judicial fiscal legislation will be able to re- 
duce the indebtedness of the Government toward 
its own citizens to a quarter of the present for- 
midable total without disorganizing industry or 
causing undue hardship to the citizens as a whole. 

In great crises of history the Government 
should have the same right to call upon capital 
as it has to call upon man-power. For the com- 
mon weal every Frenchman left his work and his 
family and spent years in fighting. A million 
and a half died and another million was incapaci- 
tated. There was no distinction of class in mili- 



What Confronts France 285 

tary service ; but the sacrifice was far greater for 
the common workingman who had nothing but 
his hands than for the man who could fight and 
die with the comfortable feeling that he was not 
leaving his family penniless. Now that the war 
is over, the portion of the body pohtic which has 
money is called upon in turn to make a sacrifice 
essential for the salvation of France. 

The sacrifice is inevitable. Otherwise interest 
payments will demand more than the annual rev- 
enue and a crash will follow more disastrous to 
the moneyed classes than a judicious levy on 
capital. Despite their reluctance to pay out 
money, the common sense of the French nation is 
bound to prevail. The French will not let the 
financial question drift or become a source of 
class antagonism. In the next Chamber of Dep- 
uties we shall undoubtedly see introduced and 
put into effect a plan for reducing the internal 
debt by distributing the sacrifices and avoiding 
the appearance of a confiscatory measure dic- 
tated by the pressure of the laboring classes. 

Admiration for France ? We have always had 



286 Prance and Ourselves 

that. Sympathy with France? We have never 
failed to show that. Confidence in France ? By 
her own deeds France herself instilled that in us. 
But during the period of reconstruction we can- 
not afford to become indifferent or cool in our 
attitude toward France. France has the right 
to continue to look to us for the whole-hearted, 
tangible, practical aid we gave her during the 
period of our military intervention. We must 
not be unwilling to do our full share and more 
than our share in international police work. We 
must help with the exchange problem. We must 
extend further credits. We must favor France 
in tariff schedules. Honor and gratitude and 
interest alike demand that we should not forget 
our war cry, "Vive la FranceT 



THE END 



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